A Reason to Stay
by greyslostwho
Summary: Booth has a girlfriend and an incident between him and Brennan a few months ago has left things awkward between them. When she is offered a six month trip to Africa, it could seem like the perfect chance to get away. Will Booth give her a reason to stay?
1. Chapter 1

**A REASON TO STAY**

**Booth has a girlfriend and an incident between him and Brennan a few months ago has left things awkward between them. When she is offered a six month trip to Africa, it could seem like the perfect chance to get away. But will Booth realise what he feels in time and give her a reason to stay? BB, angsty and romantic. Please review!**

**This one is dedicated to my saviour and favourite person in the world right now, Ronata21, for putting season 3 of Bones on Youtube for me!!!! You rule!**

_**Italics is flashback.**_

Her phone was ringing. She leant over from where she was laid in bed to reach for it, but managed to knock it on the floor in the process. She cursed, climbed out of bed and picked up the phone.

"Brennan."

"Dr Brennan, it's Dr Silas Carter from the Anthropological Institution at Harvard. We have a dig coming up in Libya next month, and we wondered if you would be interested in joining it."

Brennan closed her eyes for a second. A dig in Libya. Up until about a year ago, that would have seemed like the best idea in the world. But something had changed in her in the past months. She had become attached to her work at the Jeffersonian, with Angela, Hodgins, Zach and even Cam. And with Booth. She wasn't sure at what point he had stopped being a nuisance and started being an asset, but somewhere along the line he had. Somewhere along the way he had become more than just her partner. At some point he had become her friend.

"Dr Brennan?"

"Oh, sorry, Dr Carter. I… what would the dig entail?"

"It's for six months, uncovering some of the ancient ceremonial graves of some of the high cult priests, as well as a site from an apparent massacre and some mass graves from unconfirmed illnesses. We're taking twelve of our best students with us, an anthropology professor from the university, I'm leading the expedition, and we're looking for an actual anthropologist who's had experience in the field."

"What about pathology and entomology?" she asked, sticking to straight scientific factual questions so she didn't have to think hard about what this really meant.

"We don't need pathology. All the bodies are at least a century old, we believe. And we have two entomology students on the list, and an entomology professor will be coming out half way through the proceedings."

"Archaeology?"

"Oh, we're going in conjunction with the archaeology institute. They're sending about 20 students and a professor."

"And you really want me?"

"Sure. You're a bit of a household name to most of the students, everyone's heard of Dr Temperance Brennan, or at least Kathy Reichs and Andy Lister. They'll love to meet you and I'm sure that the dig will be quite unlike anything you've ever done before."

She thought hard. She wanted to go on this dig, she really did. But it was like there was some invisible string that tied her to the Jeffersonian. And to Booth.

"Can I let you know, Dr Carter?"

"Sure. Can you make your decision by Friday? Because if you don't come we'll have to find a replacement."

"Of course. I'll give you a ring. Thanks for asking me."

"My pleasure. Goodbye, Dr Brennan."

"Bye."

She flopped back down on her bed, sighing. Libya. Well, it would certainly be an experience. A solid anthropological experience, something she had never had a chance to see before and would probably never have a chance to see again. The rational part of her brain was raring and ready to go. The other part, the part she liked to pretend didn't exist, that part wasn't so sure.

* * *

Booth had his arm round someone, and his eyes were closed. For a moment, as he drifted out of sleep, he had a sudden vivid picture of his Bones in his mind, drawing her lips back away from his, her eyes full of tears. But then he opened his eyes and looked at the woman sleeping next to him.

Hannah Webster was beautiful. She had long blonde hair and big blue eyes and tanned brown skin. She had big, soft red lips and skin smooth and unblemished. But he didn't know why the hell he was with her right now. Because he knew from past experience that when you start to wish the other person in a relationship is someone else, that's when you realise you've gone past your sell by date and you need to let the other half go.

And, after the first night, he was imagining that Hannah was Bones. Which he should not be doing. For his sake, for Bones' sake and for Hannah's sake. He should not be even thinking about her. Not ever. Because all that was ancient history now. They were both clear on that front. They'd agreed on that, at least.

Dammit, he was still thinking about her. He should be thinking about Hannah. He was thinking about Hannah. Beautiful, funny Hannah, who he'd been dating for a month now. Hannah who he had met in a park whilst watching Parker. Hannah, who had a six year old daughter called Poppy, and no one else. Hannah, who worked in a primary school teaching four year olds to read. Parker's primary school. Hannah, who, although he wasn't sure, he suspected had whispered 'I love you' in his ear that night. He didn't deserve her love. He didn't deserve anyone's love when the only love he wanted was love he would never get.

"Hey." He heard a breathy whisper in his ear, and he turned to face her.

"Hey yourself." He said, and reached out a hand, tucking a blonde curl behind her ear. _He'd always been one for dark hair._

"Sleep well?" she whispered, raising an eyebrow. He nodded, and then closed his eyes and kissed her gently.

"You?" he asked, when he drew back, making her giggle slightly.

"Best I have in years." She said earnestly, and a wave of guilt hit him with her solemn honesty. She had twisted one of her hands into his short hair and was absent-mindedly fiddling with it. He sighed.

"We should probably get up." He said gently, making sure he sounded like he didn't want to.

Hannah pouted slightly.

"I don't mind you staying here, Seeley."

"I should get up and get dressed at least before Poppy wakes up. I don't want to give you something awkward to explain."

"It won't be. She's never known a Dad or anything. It's always been just her and me. It'll be good for her to see a man in my life again."

Booth sighed. He wasn't sure that this was what he wanted. He had never introduced any of his girlfriends to Parker. To him it seemed kind of final, like once the child knew about them, you were bonded to them so much closer. You couldn't just throw them away, for fear of how you would explain everything. Of course, Hannah had met Parker. But she was his teacher. And to him she was still just Miss Webster, who happened to be friends with his Daddy. But Poppy had never met Booth before. And once she did, Booth would know longer be able to leave if he wanted to. It would be so much more definite.

"Seeley?" Hannah asked, her smile fading. "What are you thinking?"

_That I don't know if I'm ready to have this now. That I think I'm still in love with someone who'll never love me. That I'm such an ass that I really have no plans for the future with you at all. That I don't want to meet your daughter because then I won't have an escape route._

"If you're sure Poppy won't mind."

Hannah grinned, and instead of feeling glad that he could make her so happy, Booth felt guilty. Hannah kissed him and again he closed his eyes. And there was a flicker of a second where he wished that the woman with her lips on his was Temperance Brennan.

* * *

He was sat at the breakfast table, eating some of Hannah's Cheerios, when Poppy Webster walked into the room. Hannah had gone to use the bathroom and he was sat alone, reading the back of the cereal box.

"Who are you?" She said indignantly, and Booth couldn't help be shocked by the likeness between her and her mother. It was extreme. They could easily have been sisters, years apart, or even the same person, different times.

"My name's Seeley Booth." He said, because he couldn't think of anything else to say.

"That's a stupid name." she said. But she was smiling. "Why are you eating my cereals?"

"Were they yours? I'm sorry. I thought they were your Mom's." he said.

"Why are you eating my Mommy's cereals?" she asked, and Booth opened his mouth and then closed it again, unsure of what to say next that wouldn't incriminate him.

"Poppy, this is Seeley. The man I told you about. Parker's Daddy." Hannah stood in the doorway.

Poppy smiled at him. "Nice to meet you." She said politely, and Booth grinned. She was an adorable little girl.

"You know Parker?"

"Yep. He's in my Games class."

"Really?" Booth said. Hannah walked across the room and pointedly kissed him on the mouth, right in front of her daughter. Poppy didn't blink an eyelid. Booth almost wished she had. He almost wished she had screamed and shouted, and Hannah had told him she was very sorry but if Poppy didn't agree to it then there could never be anything between them. But Poppy said nothing just sat down next to Booth.

"Are you really a spy?" Poppy said, her eyes wide with excitement. "Parker said his Dad was a spy once."

Booth chuckled. Trying to explain to his five year old son what the FBI actually did had been difficult, and he wasn't sure he had come out with the most accurate idea.

"He is." Hannah said, giving Booth a conspiratorial wink. Booth smiled. Hannah's hand reached across the table and took his. He clasped his fingers around hers and smiled as hard as he could. Maybe if he convinced himself hard enough, then he might be able to make this work.

**OK, so Booth is dating Hannah and Brennan is thinking of going to Libya on a dig. Let me know if you like this.**

**xgreyslostwhox**


	2. Chapter 2

**A REASON TO STAY**

**Booth has a girlfriend and an incident between him and Brennan a few months ago has left things awkward between them. When she is offered a six month trip to Africa, it could seem like the perfect chance to get away. But will Booth realise what he feels in time and give her a reason to stay? BB, angsty and romantic. Please review!**

**This one is dedicated to my saviour and favourite person in the world right now, Ronata21, for putting season 3 of Bones on Youtube for me!!!! You rule!**

_**Italics is flashback.**_

Booth, Poppy and Hannah were in the park when his phone rang. At first he'd been uneasy about going there, half scared of being spotted by Brennan on one of her Sunday morning walks, half afraid that going out in public made everything more definite. But by the time they got there, and he and Hannah were sat watching Poppy on the swings, he was glad they had come. The fresh air had done something to clear his head and he realised how lucky he was to be sat there with such a beautiful, kind woman. A woman who might love him. He had his arm around her and she was resting her head on his shoulder. And there was no sign of Brennan.

The phone rang in his pocket, and he answered it almost immediately, willing it to be someone he knew he shouldn't.

"Booth."

"It's Cullen. We have a case."

"It's Sunday."

Cullen said nothing, but Booth could feel his disapproval.

"All right, what is it?"

"A bag of bones has been found inside a car in a scrapheap."

"Why is that FBI?"

"The car in question was registered under Dariusz Rosetti, He was wanted for seven counts of murder and we locked him up 3 years ago. He was only about seventeen years old, but he was rising to become one of Simeon Ezra's top assassins."

Booth grimaced. Simeon Ezra was the leader of one of the most feared gangs in Washington DC.

"Right. Where do you want me?"

"Darhan scrapheap. It's about 3 miles from Headquarters. And bring Dr Brennan."

"Why? Can't you just check dental records?"

"No. We don't have a head."

"Shit." Booth said, and then sighed in relief when he realised that Poppy was too far away to hear. "I'll be right there."

He hung up and turned to Hannah. "I have to go work." He said, and he watched guiltily as her face fell. He leant up and kissed her gently. "I'm sorry. I'll make it up to you tonight, I promise."

He waited, unsure if he had been too presumptuous. But Hannah laughed. A light, tinkling, girly laugh. "I'll hold you to that one, Seeley." She said, and kissed him again. "Now go."

He waved to Poppy, who waved back, grinning, and took off at a fast walk across the park, heading to get to his SUV which he'd left parked at Hannah's.

* * *

Brennan's phone rung. She was sat at her laptop reading up about Libyan burial rituals and wondering whether to go, to consider going, or to not even think about it.

"Brennan."

"Bones, it's me."

"Hi." She said, smiling, relaxing. It was Booth.

"Are you busy? We have a case."

"No." she said quickly. Too quickly. "I'm there."

"Whoah. Are you sure you don't have something better to do on a Sunday?"

"No." she said sharply. "Are you going to pick me up or shall we meet at the Jeffersonian?"

"I'll pick you up. See you in 5, Bones."

"Bye." She said, and hung up the phone. Her freaking heart was racing. How did he have the ability to make that happen? After all, there was nothing between them, they had agreed on that long ago. She sighed. A case on a Sunday. She knew how much of a sad person it made her that she liked that idea. Truthfully, she liked every moment she was able to spend with Booth, even if she spent them pretending. Pretending what had happened had never happened, and pretending she hadn't been lying about it.

* * *

"_Look, Bones, I'm sorry about your Dad. I know nothing I ever say will make it better, but I have to say it. I have to say I'm sorry."_

"_It's ok, Booth. You were just doing your job. I can't expect you not to do your job. And he committed crimes, and got what he deserved. Rationally, I shouldn't expect the law to be different for him."_

"_Stop being so Goddamn rational for once, then! I'm sorry for what I did. I shouldn't have done it."_

"_Yes you should. You were just doing your job. It's fine. He wasn't anything to me anyway."_

"_You don't have to say that. You get to be sad, you get to be mad." He sighed. "Mad at me."_

"_I'm not mad at you." She said, "If I'm mad at anyone then I'm mad at him for doing everything he did."_

"_He did it for you and Russ. Because he loves you."_

_There was a silence, and then Brennan's eyes filled with tears. "You don't get to talk about him." She said coldly, "You don't get to justify what he did. You made him pay for it."_

_And then in an instant she was shouting at him. "Why did you have to do it? Why couldn't you have just walked away, left it? Why couldn't you have done that for me? Because he may be a criminal, and he may deserve it, but he's still my Dad, and I still love him, and he was all I had left! Russ has his own family now. He was all I had left!" She shouted, her eyes wild, tears streaming. Booth caught her by the shoulders._

"_It's ok to be mad. I don't mind you being mad."_

_She shook him off. "No, it's not ok to be mad. I don't get mad. I'm a sensible, intelligent, scientific person. I… I don't __**do **__mad."_

_She seemed to have run out of steam, so he opened his arms and let her fall into them._

"_I know nothing I ever do can change what I did, but I will do anything you want me to. I'll leave, and talk to Cullen about getting you a new partner if you want." He looked at her, longing for her to correct him on that one. But she said nothing._

"_Bones? Is that what you want?"_

_She looked him in the eyes, and something in her dark grey pools of eternity scared him slightly. "I don't know what I want anymore." She said, and pressed her lips against hers._

_He responded the only way he could think of, by kissing her back, and hard. He slid his hands into her hair and felt hers come around his waist, around his neck. He kissed her with a passion and longing that had been bottled up inside him forever. He leant his body into hers and feeling her curves against him only made his heart beat even faster._ _When she finally pulled away it seemed like years had passed, he felt so changed. He kept his hands around her waist and just looked at her, waiting for her to say something. But her eyes just filled with tears._

_He had fantasised over their first kiss for years. But he had never imagined it would be like this. Some of his dreamings were hot, passionate, some of them were just chaste, tiny, a promise of more to come. Some of the kisses were amidst fear and pain, some were under the stars on a perfect moonlit night. But none left her crying. Not until now._

"_Booth…" she said shakily after a minute or two of complete silence. "I think you'd better leave."_

"_Bones…" he said, but she pulled away from him and stood up. _

"_I'll think about what you said about getting a new partner."_

_His heart bled, he was sure of it. "Look, if we don't talk about this now, we'll never talk about it." He said, a desperate attempt to make her listen._

"_There's nothing to talk about. I need you to go now." Her voice wasn't the same as it usually was. It was still quiet and husky, but it was weak and not in the slightest bit forceful. And her eyes were still full._

"_There is something to talk about. I don't know what it means yet, and it probably means something bad, but it definitely means something." He took a deep breath, "And I know you felt it too. You can't lie to me. You can't look me in the eye and say it meant nothing."_

_Coldly, she bent down so her eyes were level with his and looked deep into them. For once he could read nothing in her eyes, nothing but sadness._

"_It meant nothing." She said, her voice hardly even loud enough to hear. "Now, I think it would be best for us both if you leave, Booth."_

_He grasped her hand, hard. "Don't do this, Temperance." He said, and the sound of her given name on his lips made her shiver. "I love you. I've loved you forever."_

_And that was when the tears spilled out._

"_I need you to go, Booth. I think you should leave."_

_He looked at her pleadingly. "I know you feel something too. You couldn't have kissed me like that and not felt something, anything. And if you make me leave now I won't come back."_

"_Leave." She said, the only word she could make her mouth form. He looked at her one last, longing time, and then he left the apartment._

* * *

She was ready to go when he opened the door. She opened it and then closed it straight behind her. Obliviously to each other, both of them sighed. Gone were the days when he had gone in to her apartment, when they had spent so much time together, just talking. Gone were the days when they were 100 comfortable in each other's company. Gone were the days of no secrets, the days of telling each other everything. Somewhere along the line best friends had gone back to just partners.

"There's been a bag of bones identified in a car that was registered to a previous gang member, currently in jail. They don't know exactly what they've got but they're missing a head."

"Right." Brennan said, and climbed into the SUV. Booth drove quickly towards the scrapheap. It was the little things that had changed between them. Like the way she never asked to drive anymore, and pretended to be angry when he wouldn't let her.

"How long has the guy been in jail?" Brennan asked after about five minutes of driving in total silence.

"3 years."

"And the car was never handed in?"

"No."

"So he could be the murderer?"

"He could. But he was an assassin for Simeon Ezra's gang. He used to leave the corpses behind, not bag them up without their heads."

Brennan said nothing. Silence continued, and she found herself amazed at how much not talking said. It screamed awkwardness, regret, and secrecy.

Booth's phone rang.

"Booth." He answered, and Brennan watched his face spread into a smile. She had forgotten how much she loved his smile. She decided that when he got off the phone she would tell him about the trip to Libya and ask what he thought.

"Hey." He said, "Yeah…I'm on my way to the crime scene now… you don't honestly want to know… is she ok with it?... She looks like you…" he laughed.

Brennan's head snapped up. Not many people made Booth laugh like that. In an instant she knew she had to know who he was talking to. She kept listening.

"Yeah… I don't know, around 6:30… that sounds great… can you get a babysitter at that short notice?... Brilliant… I'll see you then…" Another laugh, "I miss you too, Han… Bye!" He put the phone back in his shirt pocket.

Brennan looked at him suspiciously, a sinking feeling in her stomach.

"A new girlfriend?" she asked, and he knew he couldn't look at her for fear his face would convey his darker urges.

"Actually, I've been dating her for more than a month now." He said quite sharply.

Brennan swallowed. "What's her name?"

"Hannah. Hannah Webster. She's a teacher at Parker's school. She's got a daughter herself. Lovely little girl. Poppy."

Brennan wanted to be angry that he hadn't told her this before, but she couldn't. Because she knew that it was her fault they weren't close anymore. Entirely her fault.

"She sounds nice." She said, kind of lamely, but there was nothing that could be done about that.

"She is." Booth said, and she noticed the light in his eyes. He looked… really happy. She hadn't seen him look like that for months.

"Are you going to bring her to the Jeffersonian ball at the weekend?" she asked, and then wished she hadn't. Of course, Hodgins would come with Angela and Cam would bring her new boyfriend Jason, but usually she and Booth just went alone. And they would dance together, too. She liked that.

"I suppose I will." Booth said, because he couldn't very well say no. But his heart was sinking, and fast. The Jeffersonian balls were a **thing **with him and his Bones. They would sit together, complain about the food, complain about the rich people, laugh at Angela's attempts to teach Hodgins to dance, and then afterwards they would get take out. But he guessed they didn't get to have **things **anymore.

"Awesome." She said, and Booth raised his eyebrows. Temperance Brennan did not say awesome. There was something wrong. But as he was about to ask her, they drew up at the scene.

* * *

The CSIs had laid out the bones on the sacking to make everything easier for Brennan. She walked straight over and knelt down by the bones, taking a closer look. For minutes there was silence, and then she looked up at Booth.

"I'll need to take these back to the Jeffersonian." She said. I'll need to get them laid out and – oh!" she gave a little gasp.

"What is it?" Booth asked. Brennan slipped on her gloves silently and then lifted up two bones.

"Two phalanges. Both from little fingers. From different people."

Booth raised his eyebrows. "I'm not going to ask how you can tell, Bones. Is that definite?"

She nodded grimly. "This bone is far older. Around 40 to 50 years. Oh, and these two vertebrae. There are at least two victims here."

Booth flipped open his phone to talk to Cullen.

"We're looking for two heads." He said.

Brennan scanned her eyes over the bones again. Except for the phalanges, vertebrae and one fibula, all the bones appeared to be from the same person. A female, and she'd had two or three children. Between thirty and forty years old, she thought from her initial look. But once she got the bones back to the Jeffersonian and to her team, she would have a lot more to tell.

"This one's not hers, either." She said to Booth, pointing to the fibula. "But I think it belongs to the same person as the other odd bones. Looks around the same age, and of relative size. I need to get these tested and laid out properly in the lab."

"A truck's coming to take you and the bones to the Jeffersonian, Bones. You might want to call the team, though. It's Sunday. They'll be at home."

"I only really need Zach and Hodgins. There's nothing for Cam to work with and Angela can't exactly help without a skull, so if I-"

"Do you really think for one minute, Bones, that Angela will let Hodgins come in?"

Brennan sighed. "He'll have to come. I need him before I can clean the bones and do anything with them." She looked at him, and a smile teased her lips, "Booth – ring them for me?"

"No."

"Please?" she said, and she almost pouted. Booth couldn't help smiling and rolling his eyes before turning away to ring Hodgins and Zach.

**I've never written one of these with a case before, so you'll have to bear with me. If I make any mistakes just point them out. Thanks. Please review. I want to know what you think.**


	3. Chapter 3

**A REASON TO STAY**

**Booth has a girlfriend and an incident between him and Brennan a few months ago has left things awkward between them. When she is offered a six month trip to Africa, it could seem like the perfect chance to get away. But will Booth realise what he feels in time and give her a reason to stay? BB, angsty and romantic. Please review!**

**This one is dedicated to my saviour and favourite person in the world right now, Ronata21, for putting season 3 of Bones on Youtube for me!!!! You rule!**

_**Italics is flashback.**_

"I found traces of hydro cyanide on the main bones, Dr Brennan." Hodgins said, after his examination of the bones.

She looked at the entomologist, "Talk to me." She said.

"It's Prussic acid. Really nasty stuff. The Nazis used it in the death camps in the war. From what I can tell it looks like our victim came into contact with a large quantity of the acid on her left leg and her left arm."

"Torture?"

"Possibly. What you got towards her identity?"

"The woman was about 32, 33, probably Caucasian, had two children at least, or twins. The bones had been in the bag for roughly a year. I'm not sure on the time of death, it would depend on whether the bones were cleaned before putting into the bag or not. But from what you found I guess not, so we're looking at someone who died between one and two years ago. The other bones are around 50 years old, slightly bigger than the other bones, so could be male, or just a taller or bigger built person."

"And I have something about the other bones. They have traces of certain bacteria and fungi on them which I would normally have over looked. It means that the bones were buried."

Brennan stopped in her tracks. "Why would anyone dig up four bones and put them in a bone bag with our victim?"

From behind her, Booth spoke. "God knows."

Once Zach had cleaned the bones, he and Brennan laid them out on the table, excluding the four bones from the other victim. They managed to lay all the bones out in the right places, minus the head. There was something he didn't like about bones without a head, Booth thought, because it made him think of horrible things that it could mean. He watched Brennan pouring over them almost wistfully. Then his phones beeped, and he checked his messages. A text from Hannah.

I NO ILL C U 2NITE BUT I MISS YOU ALREADY. HOPE U CATCH WHOEVER DID IT.

LUV HANNAH

XXX

He smiled unwittingly and slid his phone away. A shadow passed over Brennan's face.

"Dr Brennan, are you ok?" Zach said.

"Yes. Why wouldn't I be?" Brennan said tightly.

"You've gone pale." Zach said, but then leant back over the bones. Booth looked at Brennan. She had gone white, like she did when she was angry. He sighed. He felt he hardly knew her anymore.

* * *

"Our victim had a rare genetic condition that would have caused her severe neck pain." Brennan said. Booth's eyes flew open. Oh God. He had not just fallen asleep whilst the squints looked at bones. He tried to look alert, but Brennan was laughing quietly at him.

"You need to get more sleep." She said dryly, and for just a second looked almost horrified at herself. She was realising what he had been doing instead of sleeping. For a moment there was a silence, a silence Zach was completely oblivious to, bent over the top few vertebrae, inspecting them even closer.

"This condition?" Booth said, ignoring the fact that Brennan had gone pale again, "Will it help us to find our victim?"

"Possibly. But she may not even have realised that she had the condition. She could have just suffered with neck pain for most of her life and never been to the doctors or had it X-rayed. It's possible, therefore, that there will be no medical records of this."

"Got anything else for me?" Booth said, hoping she did. He hated the long cases where they took weeks to identify who the victim was.

"Not really. She had multiple healed fractures on her phalanges in her toes, which could imply a lot of hard dance training at one point in her life, but not particularly recently. Ballet, by the looks of it."

Zach turned to him. "Though the slight corrosion of the knee joint could suggest that she was a hard runner." He said, gesturing to the bones for Booth's sake. And then Brennan added one more.

"And the slight scoring on the right elbow here suggests she sustained a serious injury to it. That could have been during the murder, could have been previously, but it's not that old. It didn't have a chance to heal before her death."

Booth swallowed. "So we're looking at a victim who couldn't even fight back because she was injured?"

Brennan didn't need to say anything. Her face said it all. Booth sighed.

"Cause of death?" he asked.

"Nothing without the skull. Could have been anything from shooting, blunt force trauma to suffocation, but we can't tell without the head."

"I'm going to check the missing person's records in the past two years. I'll check any matches I get up against hospital records for the elbow injury, and anything that might tell me she was either a ballet dancer or an athlete. And for two children. Anything else?"

"The neck condition." Zach said. "Don't forget the neck condition. It could present in severe pain, they could have discovered it, or she could have just had a few physiotherapy sessions on it."

"Right." Booth said, and smiled. "I'll go do that then."

"Right." Brennan said, but she didn't meet his eyes.

Before Booth escaped the room, Angela poked her head round the door.

"Guys, it was Jack's birthday yesterday, and I took him out. But I think he'd really like it if you guys would all come out with us tonight. We won't go anywhere too expensive or anything."

"Sure." Brennan said, and Zach nodded.

"It will be nice to bond with Hodgins over food and alcoholic drink to celebrate his previous year of life."

Angela laughed. "When's the Mother ship coming, Zach?"

Zach was oblivious to her comment, but Brennan's face showed confusion. "I don't know what that means." She said, looking from Angela to Booth, both of them laughing.

"The Mother ship, Bones? Angela was insinuating Zach was an alien."

"Well, why would she do that? Zach is obviously human, he has the same DNA structure as everyone else, and anyway we have no proof that intelligent life exists on other planets, and whether it has the technology to build a ship to travel to-"

"Never mind, sweetie." Angela said, and raised her eyebrows at Booth. The two of them laughed again. Brennan went back to bending over the bones.

"What about you, Booth, you coming tonight?"

"He has a date." Brennan said without looking at him, and Angela's mouth dropped open.

Booth nodded, trying to look enthralled about it. He had forgotten about his promise to Hannah, and quite frankly he wished he hadn't made it now. Though he would never admit it, a night out with the squints was always a laugh and if it meant he got to sit next to Brennan, and watch her laugh and tell stories and eat daintily and drink her way through three glasses of wine, then he didn't like to pass up the opportunity.

"Yeah. Sorry." He said, fixing a smile onto his face with a vengeance. He didn't take his eyes of Brennan's face, but she was pointedly not looking at him.

Angela looked between Booth and Brennan at least five times before speaking again.

"Who is she?" she asked, her eyebrows raised, a tone of dislike in her voice.

"Her name's Hannah Webster, she's Parker's school teacher. She's got a daughter a little bit older than Parker."

"How long has this been going on?" Angela asked, and Booth would have laughed if he hadn't suddenly have felt so miserable. It was like Angela was interrogating him.

"About a month now." He said, praying that the questions were over. Apparently they were, because Angela walked over to Zach and Brennan on the table. Booth sighed and left the room. He got a feeling he had done something very wrong in Angela's books.

* * *

Brennan sat in her office, eating her lunch. Angela was perched on the desk, smiling at her sympathetically.

"Are you ok, sweetie?" she asked.

"Why wouldn't I be?"

"Booth and his girlfriend and all that?" she said.

"Of course I'm ok, Ange. Booth can date whoever he likes. I'm just his partner. I don't care."

Angela sighed. "Sweetie, you were never fooling me with that originally. And since you kissed him-"

Brennan's eyes flashed with anger. "That day was a moment of weakness. I was upset and I was drunk."

"You were not drunk! You'd been working all day! You do not get to use the drunk excuse!"

"Fine. I wasn't drunk. But I was very upset and I wasn't myself. I was going crazy."

Angela just looked at her. "You kissed him because you wanted to kiss him, Bren. And you still do. You want him. And just because he now has another girlfriend doesn't mean that that is going to change. You should tell him how you feel."

"I don't **feel **anything!" She said, her eyes filling up with tears, "Oh God."

Angela put her arms around her and hugged her tightly. "I'm sorry, sweetie, but I've been telling you forever to just swallow your pride and tell him how you feel, and you've never taken the chance."

Brennan said nothing, just pulled away from the hug, and wiped her tears away. "Sorry, but I think I'd rather eat lunch alone." She said, and Angela gave her a quick hug and left the room. Brennan put her head in her hands. What the hell was wrong with her? She hadn't used to let herself feel this hard.

_

* * *

_

"_You didn't phone Cullen." He said. She nodded._

"_I don't want another partner." She stated simply, and for a moment his face lit up. She looked at him earnestly._

"_The other night… I was screwed up. I'd… I'd like it if we could pretend it didn't happen."_

_He looked at her hard, and the sadness in his eyes made her look away. "All right." He said, and stood up. Silently he walked across the room so the two of them were facing each other._

"_We can go back to the way we were?" she asked tentatively._

_He nodded._

"_Friends?"_

_He nodded again, but he couldn't look her in the eye. Roughly and awkwardly she put her arms around him and gave him a tight hug._

"_Thank you, Booth." She said, and he held on for a moment too long, breathing in the scent of her hair, knowing that although they were putting things back to normal he had lost her forever. She pulled back slowly._

"_We're back to what we were then?" she asked, "Exactly the same?"_

"_Exactly the same." He echoed._

_But they weren't. He would never come back to her apartment to work on the cases anymore, and there was a lot less bickering going on. He didn't invite her out with him and Parker at all and they didn't get lunch at the diner or work late and get take out like they used to. There was almost a layer of tension between them that neither of them could erase. They were, after everything, just partners now, like they had been falsely pretending to be before. And every time he thought about it, it hurt._

**So we're narrowing down on the victim and the case, and Brennan has finally admitted to herself how she feels. I have a good feeling about this story, I think it could be good.**

**Coming up - They ID the victim and it comes as a shock to Brennan.**


	4. Chapter 4

**A REASON TO STAY**

**Booth has a girlfriend and an incident between him and Brennan a few months ago has left things awkward between them. When she is offered a six month trip to Africa, it could seem like the perfect chance to get away. But will Booth realise what he feels in time and give her a reason to stay? BB, angsty and romantic. Please review!**

**This one is dedicated to my saviour and favourite person in the world right now, Ronata21, for putting season 3 of Bones on Youtube for me!!!! You rule!**

_**Italics is flashback.**_

Booth watched through the windows of her office as she sunk into her hands. Angela stepped out and looked at him coldly.

"Why is she crying?" he asked, somewhere deep in his chest feeling actual physical pain as he watched her.

"I don't think you deserve to know that." Angela said, and walked away. Booth was left, stunned at the artist, who was always usually so nice to everyone, and then he returned to his laptop, checking the missing person's lists.

Within an hour, he had come up with two possibilities – Sandy Blake, a thirty four year old woman, missing for eighteen months, twin boys, a keen runner. She had broken her elbow four weeks before she went missing. The other possibility made his heart stop beating, almost. Her name was Sara Riches, thirty two, missing for a year, a daughter and a son, with medical records of a stillborn twin for her son. She had had five physiotherapy sessions for a bad neck. She had broken her elbow a week before she went missing. But the thing that made him sit there and stare at her photo on the screen was the fact that he had seen her before. In a photo somewhere in Brennan's apartment. He could see the photo in his mind's eye, Brennan and Sara in their early twenties with their arms around each other, smiling broadly. He'd asked who it was and Brennan had said she was the only foster sister that she had ever kept in touch with. And how she had stopped contact with her abruptly just over two years ago. He remembered Brennan telling him how Sara had been a brilliant ballet dancer and how they had tried to make her go with her for one week but she had failed miserably and refused to go back.

He didn't know why Brennan had been crying, but he knew this wasn't going to make her any happier. He hoped to all goodness that it was Sandy Blake that they had found. But that didn't erase the fact that Sara was still missing. Heart sinking, her downloaded the X-rays of their elbow breaks. Even he could tell from looking at them that they were completely different. He would give them to Brennan without names and then she could tell him which one it was, and then they would go from there on the subject of Sara Riches.

* * *

"It's that one." Brennan said almost immediately. She beckoned Zach over and he nodded.

"Definitely that one."

"Are you sure?" Booth said, praying uselessly that she might have made a mistake.

"Yes." Brennan said curtly and he looked at her. Her eyes were rimmed slightly with red from her crying earlier.

He said nothing, just took a deep breath.

"Who's our victim, Agent Booth?" Zach asked, with mild curiosity. That was what Booth admired about the squints. Their ability to distance themselves enough from the victims to talk about them as if they were someone on TV.

"Sara Riches." He breathed, not taking his eyes off Brennan.

Her face fell and her eyes turned a slightly paler shade of grey as she filled with tears. But then she blinked hard and a mask descended over her features. She was not going to let her sadness show.

"Right." She said. And then she looked at everyone else in the room. "Can you all give me a minute?" she said, and got up and walked briskly into her office, shutting the door and drawing the blinds.

"What happened?" Hodgins asked, and Booth sighed.

"Dr Brennan knew her." He said. "She was her foster sister. They were good friends."

"Oh." Angela said quietly, and she blinked furiously.

"Is it definitely her?" Cam asked.

"Definitely." Booth said. There are only two people on the missing person's list who had elbow injuries in their history, and the right number of children. Everything with Sara matches. It's got to be her."

No one said anything. Booth had his eyes fixed on Brennan's door, wondering when she would come out, and whether he should…

"Go and she if she's ok." Angela said, a sad smile on her face as she looked at him. For a moment he was confused but then he read the honesty in Angela's gaze. He knocked on Brennan's door and went in.

* * *

She was sat on the floor in her office, holding a picture frame – the picture of her and Sara. She was staring at it with big wide eyes and tears were dripping off her nose. Booth felt the same pain he had felt earlier as he sat down beside her, not touching, just there.

"I'm sorry, Bones." He said gently, but she didn't acknowledge him. She just blinked, sending more tears onto the photo.

He put an arm loosely around her shoulders, and she didn't fight him off. He pulled her in towards him and let her head rest on his shoulder. Her whole body shook with sobs.

"She ran the marathon." She said thickly, "That's what the photo is of. At the party, afterwards."

He said nothing, but tightened his hold on her.

"She had a husband, and two kids. Alice and Daniel. She wanted to make me Daniel's godmother but I couldn't because I don't believe in God. She was a nurse."

She turned her face into his shoulder and cried hard.

"I thought when she stopped returning my calls that she was just too busy. And when I didn't get a Christmas card from her I was annoyed at her for forgetting me."

Brennan let her arms slide around Booth.

"Thank you." She whispered as he held her tight, fearing letting go.

"Are you all right to work with this case still, Bones?" he asked, "Because we can always get it referred on to a different forensic anthropologist."

"No. It's ok. It was just a shock, that's all. I'm ok now." She said, and pulled away from him, standing up. She wiped her eyes and was about to walk out the door when he stopped her.

"Wait – you've got a smudge." He said, and reached out gingerly to wipe it away from under her eye. The skin to skin contact was explosive. She lifted her eyes to his and for a moment they held each other's gaze.

"Booth-" Brennan said, realising that Angela was right, she had to tell him.

"Yes?" he asked, not breaking the stare.

And then the door opened behind them. Angela stood there, a sympathetic look on her face.

"Cullen's on the phone for you, Booth." She said.

"Right." Booth said, and darted out of the room to the phone. Brennan was left standing there, shaking.

"Sweetie?" Angela asked, leaving it open for Brennan to either say something or nothing, depending on what she wanted.

"I was going to tell him." She said, "Just then. I was going to tell him."

Angela's jaw dropped.

"You can't let me tell him." Brennan said, "He's got Hannah now."

**As always, please please please review.**

**Coming up - Booth and Brennan go to Sara's house, and meet her husband and daughter.**


	5. Chapter 5

**A REASON TO STAY**

**Booth has a girlfriend and an incident between him and Brennan a few months ago has left things awkward between them. When she is offered a six month trip to Africa, it could seem like the perfect chance to get away. But will Booth realise what he feels in time and give her a reason to stay? BB, angsty and romantic. Please review!**

**This one is dedicated to my saviour and favourite person in the world right now, Ronata21, for putting season 3 of Bones on Youtube for me!!!! You rule!**

_**Italics is flashback.**_

When Booth had come off the phone with Cullen, Brennan was leant over the body again, looking hard for any final clues as to the cause of death. He walked over to her.

"Do you want to come with me to see the husband and kids?" he asked.

Brennan froze. She had forgotten she would have to face Michael Riches and the children. But she nodded, anyway.

"I'll just get out of my lab gear." She said, and went into the office to change.

In ten minutes they in Booth's SUV, speeding towards Sara Riches' nice little townhouse in a nice street. Brennan's heart was thudding. She didn't know how she would stand there in front of Michael and tell him Sara had been found headless in a trashed car belonging to a gang assassin. She knew she wouldn't have to, she knew Booth would do the explaining, but she couldn't help shaking in her seat as she thought of how although she had been in Guatemala for Sara's wedding, she had sent her pictures. She had looked so happy, radiant.

Booth rung the doorbell, shooting an anxious glance at Brennan. She smiled weakly back at him. And then Michael Riches opened the door.

"What can I do for you?" he said.

Booth flashed him his FBI ID at about the same time as Mike recognised Brennan.

"Temperance!" he said, with an unenthusiastic smile, "Why are you here with the FBI?"

"I work with them." She said quietly.

"But… but you're a scientist…" he said, and Brennan couldn't help but notice the furrows in his foreheads, with night after night of wondering where she was.

"I'm a forensic anthropologist, Mike." She said.

His eyes widened in fear and horror.

"I think we'd better come in, Mr Riches." Booth said, and the man ushered them through to his lounge, sitting down opposite them.

"Have you found her?" he asked, and Booth nodded sadly.

"We have identified a body found in a scrapheap as your wife's, Mr Riches." Booth said. "I'm afraid that she has been dead for about a year."

"Ever since she went missing." He breathed, and then heaved a huge sigh.

"Can I get her daughter down here? I think she deserves to hear this too."

"Sure." Booth said, and Michael left the room. Brennan looked at Booth.

"I need to ask him about the Prussic acid." She said.

"I know." Booth said, and then they both looked up as Michael and Alice Riches came back into the room.

Alice Riches was tall with long dark hair and designer glasses. She was about seventeen years old. She smiled at Brennan.

"Aunty Tempe?" she asked, and Brennan nodded sadly. "Good to see you, Ally." She said, and silently hugged the girl. Then Alice sat down next to Michael and Booth continued.

"Your mother, Alice, we found her."

Alice didn't flinch.

"She's been dead for around a year."

Again, the girl made no movement.

"We found her in a car in a scrap yard."

Alice stared ahead. Michael spoke.

"How did she die?"

"We don't know." Brennan said. Booth moved to talk, but she looked at him to stop him. She had to do this. This was the hard bit.

"Her head wasn't with the body, Michael."

Michael winced, but Alice didn't move. Booth and Brennan gave them a few minutes for that to sink in. Then Booth spoke again.

"We need to ask you a few questions."

"Of course." Michael said. Alice was looking down at her hands now, twisting a Celtic style ring around her finger.

"Would your wife have come into contact in any way with hydro cyanide at any time before her disappearance that you know of?"

"W…what's that?" Michael asked, his face pale.

"Prussic acid." Alice said, before Brennan could get a word in. When Booth looked at her, she shrugged.

"I'm taking chemistry." She said lightly, as if they had not just connected the lethal substance to her dead mother.

"No, I don't think so." Michael said, "She was a nurse in the paediatric ward of the hospital."

Booth tried to smile. "Have you ever heard of a man called Dariusz Rosetti?"

Michael shook his head as Alice stiffened. Booth turned to look at her. "You have?"

"Wasn't he arrested a couple of years ago?"

Booth nodded slowly.

"Have you ever heard of Simeon Ezra?" he said slowly.

Alice shook her head fast. Michael followed later, looking bewildered. "Who are these people? What do they have to do with Sara?"

"Dariusz Rosetti was the owner of the car she was found in. And Simeon Ezra is the leader of the gang he was an assassin for." Booth said.

Alice swallowed. "A gang?" she said, eyes wide.

"Thorns and Roses." Booth said, "That's what they call themselves."

Alice looked suddenly as if she was about to be sick. "I don't think I can handle this anymore." She said, and got up and left the room. Booth stared after her.

"When did you last see Sara, Michael?" Brennan asked.

"She never came in from work one Friday. I was with Daniel at a football match and Alice was out with friends. When I came home she should have been there but she wasn't." he sighed, "I thought she had just taken a night shift. I didn't alert anyone until she didn't come home on Saturday morning. I was mad at her for not telling me about the shift. On Saturday I called the hospital and they said she'd left the night before. That was when I called the police. It transpired that she'd been seen leaving the hospital and turning right, like she always does. After that, all trace was lost."

"Did she have a car?"

"No. She used to get the bus home."

"Was anything unusual happening in your life at that time?"

"No, just the usual really. Alice was being a stroppy teenager, always out, Daniel wasn't trying hard at school, Sara was overloaded with work and kept taking more on because I'm a contractor and was finding it hard to get work."

"One more question for now, Mr Riches." He said, "Is there anyone that would have wanted Sara dead?"

Michael looked down at his hands and then up again. "Alice's Dad. He used to call up sometimes and ask to see her. Sara and I would always say no. He would shout abuse down the phone to us a lot."

Brennan looked hard at him.

"How did he know your home number?"

"I don't know. I don't even know his name. Sara never liked to talk about him. Alice doesn't even know he was phoning."

"Did you ever see him?"

"No. The only thing I know was that he had a Spanish accent." He sighed, "I didn't want to know more. He got Sara pregnant at 15 and didn't give a shit."

"Thank you, Mr Riches. When we've finished in the lab the body – Sara – will be released for burial. We may have more questions at a later date but for now, that's all we need." Booth said.

"I'm sorry for your loss, Michael." Brennan said quietly. Michael nodded. "I'm sorry for yours too."

As they left the house Booth noticed Brennan wiping her eyes fiercely.

"Hey, Bones?"

"Yeah?"

"Want to get a coffee with me?"

"Sure."

* * *

They sat in a nearby diner, staring at each other over their coffees. Booth just looked at her, waiting for her to talk.

"When I got to Mrs Gingham's, my first foster mother, Sara was already there. She was seventeen, with only one year left. She was going out all the time and not coming in til late. I shared a room with her, and we got on, although we were completely different, Sara was outrageous and couldn't care less about school, and even at fifteen I was…"

She trailed off. Booth grinned. "Ridiculously clever." He offered. Brennan smiled shyly.

"The only thing Sara gave a damn about was ballet. She was brilliant at it, though I don't really have the last clue about it. They tried to make me go once but after one week it was clear that I… I was shocking. At home there was Sara and me, two boys, about seven, and a baby at Mrs Gingham's. And Mrs Gingham always used to make Sara look after the baby. I thought that was unfair, and I always offered to help. But Mrs Gingham would never let me, said it was Sara's responsibility. And one day I told Sara all this and she laughed at me and said didn't I know? Alice was her baby. I was shocked. Brought up like I had been, it didn't even occur to me that someone of Sara's age could have a two year old. But she did. Alice."

Booth's eyes narrowed. "I didn't trust her." He said. Brennan looked at him pleadingly.

"Don't, Booth. I've known Alice Riches since she was two years old, and you've only just met her today."

Booth sighed. "She didn't seem particularly affected by the news of her mother's death."

"She was in shock, Booth. You know we see it all the time with victim's family."

They stared at each other for a moment. For the first time, Brennan had just volunteered some people skills.

"But she knew a lot about it. Prussic acid, and Dariusz Rosetti."

"She takes chemistry. And maybe she read the paper when he was arrested. That's all." She looked at him, "She's just lost her mother forever, Booth. Michael's not her real Dad and her brother's only seven years old. Sara was all she had in the world."

Booth nodded. "All right."

"Thank you." Brennan breathed.

There was a full silence as they sipped their coffee. Then Booth looked at her, sadly. "Do you want to talk about Sara?" he said.

Brennan looked at him, her eyes filling with tears.

"I'm listening." He whispered, and she smiled gratefully.

"She was beautiful. People always used to refer to her as 'the pretty Gingham girl'. She had long blonde hair and fair skin and big blue eyes. Alice didn't look anything like her. She was dark haired and olive skinned, even as a baby. She must have looked like her Dad, though we never found out who he was. Sara said he wasn't around anymore, and she wouldn't even tell Mrs Gingham. She wouldn't tell me."

She took a deep breath. "The day she turned eighteen, everything changed. She moved out with Alice into a little flat down the road and she got herself a job. Mrs Gingham would still look after Alice whilst she worked. Then I moved on, and for a while I didn't see her. I wrote to her about once every few months, and she wrote back. She said she was lonely. Until she got herself a boyfriend, a partner, and he would look after Alice whilst Sara went to night school to learn to be a nurse. I was at college by then. I didn't see her until after I'd graduated, and was headed for my first internship placement. She'd broken up with her boyfriend and her and Alice were struggling, because Mrs Gingham died of liver cancer. That was why Sara ran the marathon, and I went to London to support her. She met Michael pretty soon after that. They were married the year I was in Guatemala, and they had Daniel a year later. Everything seemed to go well after that. She started working in the hospital, and they moved into that town house, where Michael lives now. I used to go over sometimes, and see her children and things, until about two years ago. I was busy working and Sara was taking on more and more shifts. We sort of lost touch. And then… and then…" Brennan trailed off, tears overflowing from her eyes and spilling, making drips in her coffee. Booth reached out across the table and took her thin, pale hand in his. She raised her eyes to look into his and for a moment everything seemed to stop. They stared at each other, eyes unable to break contact, until the moment passed.

"We should be getting back to the Jeffersonian." Brennan said, and got up. Booth nodded and followed suit. They walked out of the diner, not saying a word.

* * *

"We can't do anything on this case until we get some more evidence." Brennan said, running her hand through her hair. "There's nothing else on the bones. Elbow injury, corrosion of the knee, hairline fractures on the toes, hydro cyanide on the left side."

"Have you got a source for that yet?" Hodgins piped up.

"No." Brennan said, and sighed, looking down at her hands. "The most likely scenario here is that it was part of the murder."

She winced slightly.

"Can't you use that to look for your killer?" Hodgins continued, "Get a supplier or something?"

"Isn't it a school issue chemical?" Brennan asked.

"I don't think so." The entomologist said. "I can check for you."

He walked off to his computer. Brennan turned to Booth, working away on the FBI laptop.

"Got anything?" she said.

"They interviewed everyone possible when she disappeared. All her family, all her friends."

_Not all of them. _Brennan thought.

"They went over and over whether anyone had seen her leaving work that day. A nurse from inside the hospital reception saw her walk out and turn right, towards the bus stop, and that was the last time anyone saw her. Everyone who worked nearby was asked, there were even notices put up in the street to see if anyone had seen anything. There was nothing. Sara Riches vanished."

"No one just vanishes." Brennan said coldly, and then looked back at Booth.

"I've got the list of people questioned that were particularly involved in her life. I have their statements, alibis and their details."

"Any of them work with Prussic acid?" Angela said. Brennan looked at her.

"Just trying to help." The artist said, shrugged and walked out of the room.

"What careers involve Prussic acid?" Booth asked vacantly, the search bar open to scan his database. Hodgins came back in.

"It's college issue chemistry." He said. "And you can buy it for amateur chemistry from warehouses."

"Any of those in the area?"

"No. Anyone looking to buy would have to go out of town. But it's not particularly popular anymore." He sighed, "Pretty much anyone with the will to could get hold of it."

"Is it worth looking up people who have purchased it in the area recently?"

"We would have to scan the data for every chemistry class in college and every chemical warehouse in the state. It's couriered a lot by road too, so it comes from all over."

Brennan and Booth sighed simultaneously, and Booth put his head in his hands.

"We have nothing to go on without the head, Bones." He said, and she looked at him.

"We have what Michael said about Alice's father." She said, her eyes suddenly bright, as they often were when she came to an idea. "Scan the medical records to see if his name is on file."

Booth typed away and they all sat there in silence, waiting.

"The space for father is empty." He said, and everyone's faces fell.

"We're never going to get anywhere." Angela said miserably.

"We have to." Brennan said. "I'm not going to leave Sara's case in limbo. Have we looked into the gang? Simeon Ezra?"

"Why would he kill Sara?" Booth asked, "I think the car thing must be pure coincidence."

"Nothing is coincidence, Booth." Brennan mused, and then looked at him, "Can't you look up gang members, make sure none of them ever met Sara?"

"Brennan, you remember what happened the last time we got involved with gangs when we were looking at a simple homicide. It causes way more trouble than it's worth."

"I still think it was the gang." Brennan said sulkily.

"I still think we ought to talk to Alice Riches." Booth fired back. Then both of them were silent.

Cam sunk down in her chair. "There must be something, some kind of answer – but we'll never find it without the skull. There's no point in sitting here talking about it. We should call it a day."

"We can't-" Brennan began, but Angela cut her off.

"Jack's party, remember? Go home and get ready, sweetie. We can think about the case in the morning."

They all got up, pushed their chairs back and then Brennan started towards her coat.

"Stop right there." Hodgins said from the doorway. "It's the police on the phone. They've found the skull."


	6. Chapter 6

**A REASON TO STAY**

**Booth has a girlfriend and an incident between him and Brennan a few months ago has left things awkward between them. When she is offered a six month trip to Africa, it could seem like the perfect chance to get away. But will Booth realise what he feels in time and give her a reason to stay? BB, angsty and romantic. Please review!**

**This one is dedicated to my saviour and favourite person in the world right now, Ronata21, for putting season 3 of Bones on Youtube for me!!!! You rule!**

_**Italics is flashback.**_

Fourland High School was in a nice area, not far from where Sara had lived. It taught about 800 students, and had a reputation for having one of the best softball teams in the state. They hadn't expelled anyone for four years, and they had won the science decathlon three years in a row. And now two freshmen looking for their tennis balls in the woods had come across a skull.

Booth and Brennan walked towards the tennis courts, where the two freshman had brought the skull. Booth was muttering something about how the FBI should have got him the message about the skull before the police phoned the Jeffersonian, but Brennan was looking at the skull she had just picked up. There was a huge cave in at the back of the skull.

"Cause of death?" Booth said quietly.

"Blunt force trauma." She said, and sighed. At least Sara died quickly. She put the skull into the evidence box and looked across at the whispering tennis students stood a few metres away.

"Let's get this back to the lab." She said. "We might have something now."

As they walked back through the corridors Booth spotted a familiar photo on the wall, under what read ACHIEVEMENTS. A smiling girl with dark hair and black framed designer glasses. The caption read: Alice Riches, wins Under 18 Advanced Chemistry prize for fourth year running.

"Bones?" he said, and gestured to the photo. Brennan stopped and stared at it.

"Do you think advanced chemistry uses prussic acid?" he said.

Brennan had paled.

"All right." She said. "You can question her. But that's it. You don't get to start making accusations. It could just be a coincidence."

"Nothing is coincidence." Booth muttered, but she pretended not to hear.

* * *

Back at the lab, Brennan and Zack settled over the skull, looking for more clues. Brennan was more obsessed than ever with working on Sara's bones, and as Booth watched her his heart hurt. She was working so hard and fast because she was hurting, and she needed closure on this case. From across the room, reading over Alice Riches' records, he wished that he didn't feel that there was something worrying about the girl Brennan seemed so attached to. But there really had been something about Alice that had set off the warning bells in his head when they had been talking to her, and what with the chemistry award he was suspicious. He had a hunch, and most of the time his hunches turned out to be correct. But the records told him nothing, except for the science prizes. She was an A star student, that was all he could find. No criminal record, no involvement with drugs, nothing. He decided he would go round to their house tomorrow when she was at school and talk to her step father first.

Brennan and Zack were bending down to look at the computer screen. Then they were stepping away, and nodding.

"It was a hammer." Brennan said sadly. "A hammer."

Booth nodded. "A hammer's a pretty common thing, Bones. Got anything else?"

"Nothing." She said. "I guess we'd better call it a day. And then we can start tomorrow looking through the lists again, and trying to build our own picture of what happened. Maybe the police missed something before."

"Bones – let me do the police stuff. You do the squint stuff."

"Right." She smiled. Then Angela poked her head round the door.

"Just coming, Ange." Brennan said. She looked at Booth. "Well, have fun at your date." She said.

"Shit!" he said, looking at the time. "I'm half an hour late."

And within seconds he was out of the door, leaving his laptop and his files. Brennan smiled after him sadly, and then left the lab.

* * *

Booth knocked on Hannah's door. He'd got stuck in traffic so by the time he eventually got there it was nearly 7:30. No one came to the door. He sighed. He wished this hadn't happened. It seemed he was always the one in any relationship to screw up. And he hated that. He hated that he was thinking so hard of Brennan all the time, and he couldn't think about the other person. He wished he could just move on. But he couldn't seem to.

Then Hannah opened the door. She started to say something, but Booth grabbed her by the shoulders and kissed her.

"I'm so sorry." He said. "I was working, and then we got a call. They found more evidence, and I had to check it-"

Hannah put a finger to his lips and led him through into her apartment. "It's ok, Seeley. I was just worried about you, that's all. I thought something had happened to you."

He looked at her hard, and then kissed her again. She was so perfect. She wasn't mad, she wasn't angry. She was **worried. **Worried that he was ok. She wasn't even a bit disappointed that she had had to cancel their reservation and cook them a meal. She was everything he should have wanted in a girlfriend.

But she wasn't the one thing he really wanted.

Over dinner, Hannah suddenly stopped and looked at Booth.

"Seeley, I'm afraid I've been lying to you." She said.

For some bizarre reason, his heart leapt. So she wasn't so perfect, after all, then.

He looked at her, willing her to go on.

"Poppy did know her father. We lived with him for four years. He… he wasn't a nice man. He used to hit me around a lot, and shout and scream. He liked a bit too much drink, you see. But I put up with it because I didn't want to cause Poppy to come from a one parent family, and anyway, he was never like it near her. She had no idea. Then one night he came in and he was really drunk, and he wanted to know why I hadn't made dinner. And when I told him I hadn't realised he was coming in, he hit me. And then he noticed Poppy because she screamed and he hit her. That night I packed our stuff and we moved out. Ran away. I had nothing, I had to restart everything down here in a tiny little box flat. Poppy still has terrible nightmares, and even I can't calm her." He voice dropped to almost a whisper, "So do I."

Booth's mouth dropped open, and he felt insanely guilty for ever having wished Hannah was Brennan. He didn't say anything.

"Luckily, I managed to get a job here, and then I put Poppy straight into school. We…we started again."

Her eyes had filled up. Reluctantly, Booth leaned over and took her hand.

"I'm sorry, Seeley. It wasn't because I didn't trust you that I didn't tell you. It's just…you're…you're the first guy I've been out with since… since Jeff, and I… I'm so happy…" she started to sob hard, full out crying, "I'm so happy and I don't want to spoil that."

Booth felt terrible. He'd hardly thought about Hannah's feelings at all. All he'd thought about was his pain and his desire and his want for his partner. But when he saw her, the little blonde with the red eyes from crying, sitting across the table from him and sobbing her poor bruised heart out, he knew that he couldn't just let her go. He'd always had a strange urge to help people, which didn't explain his choice of career, but anyway, he wouldn't let a crying person be pushed to one side. And although he knew at some point he would have to tell her about his feelings for Brennan, now wasn't the time. He couldn't do that to her now. So he got up, abandoning half their meal, took her in his arms and kissed her, closing his eyes at the moment of contact. She kissed him softly back and then pulled away, her eyes full, tear tracks down her face.

"I love you, Seeley." She said, and it was the first thing she had said all evening that had been filled with warmth. Booth felt like someone had ripped his heart out of his chest and stamped all the beat out of it. Everything seemed to stand stock still for a moment, and his thoughts flew to Brennan and the squints out for Hodgins' birthday. She would be laughing and drinking, and probably flirting with some guy at the bar. She would be unaware that he wasn't there, even. **She was crying earlier. **He tried not to think about that. And here was Hannah, in front of him, tears spilling out of her eyes, opening her heart to him when it had been torn in two before. After everything that had happened to her, it was incredible that she still had love to give. Who was he to crush that?

He bent his head and kissed her gently. The whole kiss was a lie. They stumbled through her apartment to Hannah's bedroom. Booth lying the whole way. Lying with his kisses, lying with his closed eyes.

"I love you too." He whispered. That was the biggest lie of all.

* * *

Temperance Brennan was miserable. Miserable because Zach had gone home, Cam was dancing with her boyfriend and Angela and Hodgins were dancing together, heads leant in close. She was miserable because Booth was on a date with his school teacher girlfriend who had a daughter, and because she didn't know whether to go to Libya or not. She was miserable because they had no leads on Sara's case, and Booth was going to interview Alice, and she didn't want to admit that he was right to have his suspicions. She was miserable because four random bones had shown up where they shouldn't have been, and once they had solved Sara's case they would have to look into those. And she was miserable because she couldn't drink because she had to drive home, so the miserable quality hadn't numbed in the slightest. And no one had tried to chat her up tonight.

"Sweetie." Angela said, sitting down next to her. "You look like the sky is falling."

Brennan pulled a confused face. "The sky can't fall, Ange. It is a mixture of atmospheric gases."

"Chicken Licken?" Angela said. Her friend pulled a face. "Never?" she sighed. "It means you look upset."

"I'm fine." Brennan said, almost robotically. Angela rolled her eyes. "You're not fine. You're not fine because Sara Riches is dead, and we don't know who killed her yet. And you're not fine because Booth is on a hot date with his girlfriend."

Brennan said nothing for a moment, and then put her head in her hands. "Nothing is going right at the moment, Ange. Ever since I kissed him and then I got scared and told him to leave, we haven't been the same. And now every time I look at him I can't breathe, and when he speaks I just want to hear him say my name, and if I brush against him my heart speeds up, and-"

"Sweetie, you've got it bad." Angela said, and hugged her friend sympathetically. "You're in love with Booth."

Brennan groaned. "God, I was hoping you would tell me it was just a rush of hormones or something, or it was normal to feel that for you partner."

Angela shook her head sadly. "I've been trying to tell you for months, Bren. You and Booth – no matter how much you bicker – just **work**."

"Not anymore." Brennan said darkly and Angela sighed.

"He still feels something for you. You can tell. Call him. Tell him how you feel. Then he can make his choice."

"I can't tell him! How would I tell him something like that?"

"The conversation would go something along the lines of: Booth, I love you."

"Angela, I can't."

"Then don't complain about it, sweetie." She looked at her friend, "You'll regret it forever if you never tell him and he gets married to her or something."

Brennan half shuddered, and then tried to disguise it. Angela handed her her cell phone and then walked back to Hodgins. Brennan walked just outside the bar and then dialled the number she knew off by heart.

"Hello?" Booth spoke, and then Brennan heard a muffled shout and someone else spoke. A female voice, giggling.

"Seeley's busy right now. He'll have to call you back."

And then she could hear laughing and kissing and then the dial tone.

Cold with shock, Brennan walked back into the bar, grabbed her bags and left. She drove home along the highway, staring ahead through blurred eyes. And then she felt a jolt, and then nothing.

**I know I'm mean, leaving a cliff hanger, but I promise Brennan won't die. I am into happy stories right now. Happiness is the new angst, stuff like that. **

**Coming up - The tension between Booth and Brennan reaches a head.**


	7. Chapter 7

**A REASON TO STAY**

**Booth has a girlfriend and an incident between him and Brennan a few months ago has left things awkward between them. When she is offered a six month trip to Africa, it could seem like the perfect chance to get away. But will Booth realise what he feels in time and give her a reason to stay? BB, angsty and romantic. Please review!**

**This one is dedicated to my saviour and favourite person in the world right now, Ronata21, for putting season 3 of Bones on Youtube for me!!!! You rule!**

_**Italics is flashback.**_

Booth lay in the moonlight, Hannah sprawled against him, sleeping. He couldn't stop thinking about the moment on the phone when Hannah, laughing and kissing him, had snatched the phone from him and hung up. What if it was someone important? What if it was Brennan, or Rebecca, or even Parker? His logic told him that Parker would not be phoning him in the middle of the night, but he couldn't think straight. What if it was an emergency? The same logic told him that they would have tried again by now if it was, but his logic seemed distant and detached right now. And just as he was thinking this, the phone rang again.

"Booth." He said.

"Booth, it's Angela." The artist sounded tearful. "It's Brennan. She's been in a car accident."

The line muffled, he couldn't hear her next words. Shock coursing through him, leapt out of bed and out on to Hannah's balcony, so he could get more signal.

"What? Is she ok?"

"She hasn't been hurt, Booth, she's at the hospital and she needs someone to pick her up. But the rest of us have had too much to drink. Could you get her?"

"Sure." Booth said, his heart beginning to slow a little. "Are you sure she's ok?"

"Yeah. Not even a scratch, apparently. But she's a bit shaken up, and in shock, but she's ok."

"Oh, Thank God." Booth said, and then drew himself together. "Tell her I'll be there in a few minutes. Bye, Angela."

"Bye." She said, and then he heard the dialling tone.

His heart was pounding. He was lucky, she was lucky. She could have been killed. What if it had been her that Hannah had hung up on and then she had been killed? What if he'd passed up the last chance to speak to her? He couldn't bear even thinking about it. He drove as fast as he could to the hospital, not even thinking about leaving Hannah alone in bed, no idea where he had got to. He wouldn't believe she was all right one hundred percent until she was right in front of him, and he could see her and touch her, and know she was real.

* * *

She couldn't stop shaking, which was stupid, because she was fine. No one had been hurt, she had just been knocked about a bit. All she had was a tiny cut above her left eye, some bruises, and her back ached. But the doctor had given her the once over, and said that she should be back to normal in a few days. And she could still work, so everything was all right. But somehow, her hands wouldn't stop shaking and her legs weren't steady. The doctor had told her not to drive today, but by tomorrow the shock should have worn off. So she was obeying that. She'd phoned Angela to come pick her up, but everyone had had too much to drink and couldn't drive. Angela had told her to phone Booth, but that, irritatingly, had started her off into floods of unwanted tears. So Angela had told her not to worry, and said she'd phone Booth herself. And a few minutes ago she had got a text from the artist telling her Booth was on his way. She wasn't sure whether to be glad or annoyed. She wasn't sure whether she could face him after earlier. She had never had a problem with him dating other people before, but now she had admitted her feelings to herself and to Angela, now she couldn't bear it. She wanted nothing more than to hold him in her arms and make him forget his schoolteacher. Hannah, was it? Or Hayley?

She called him Seeley. Maybe Brennan should call him Seeley. Maybe that would change things between them. He'd only used the name Temperance once or twice, but whenever he did, it set her heart on fire. Maybe she should call him Seeley. Oh, who was she kidding? She'd made a pass at him, he'd accepted. She'd pushed him away, shouted at him, pretended to hate him, pretended to feel nothing. Truth was, she felt everything when his lips touched hers. Everything, so much that it hurt. A wild rush of emotions that she couldn't control. That was why she had pushed him away. She liked to be in control. She had to be in control. After everything that had happened to her, every time something had gone wrong in her life, now all she would deal with was what she was in control of. Her relationships consisted of things she initiated decisions she made, kisses she offered. But when she was with Booth there was the alien urge to let him take her somewhere she'd never quite been before. To let him take her to a world where fireworks exploded again and again, where it didn't matter that she was crossing the line. She'd had a glimpse of that world when she kissed him, and it had scared her. She was scared of the unknown.

"What are you thinking about?" said a voice, and she looked up to see Booth. The shaking subsided instantly, and the barrier she'd constructed broke down. Her shoulders shook with sobs, her eyes leaked with tears. He crouched in front of her and put his arms around her awkwardly. She half launched herself, half fell forward into them, and she sobbed into his shoulder hard. She felt his hands stroking her hair, his voice murmuring words of comfort into her ear. If he thought it was strange that she was taking this so badly, he didn't say anything. He just waited for her tears to run out, and then half lifted her up from the chair.

"You ready to go home, Bones?" he asked.

Smiling weakly, she nodded.

* * *

He drove her home, almost in silence. He kept stealing glances at her across the SUV. She was pale, and she had a cut above her left eyebrow. She had a bruise on her right cheek, and another one on her chin. Other than that, and the outburst of tears she had had when he first arrived, she seemed to be ok. It had been such a relief to see her sat there in the waiting room, deep in shock. He had walked up to her briskly, but she hadn't moved. He had smiled, unwittingly, and the concentrated frown on her face. It was only when he spoke that she looked up at him. And then she had burst into tears and he had taken her into his arms. He knew that he shouldn't, of course he did. He knew that every time he let his arms go around her he would find it harder to let go. He shouldn't do that to Hannah. But seeing her crying, so vulnerable, he couldn't help it.

"You know I called you earlier." She said, her voice cold and matter-of-fact. He almost winced. He wished she hadn't had to hear that. But he nodded, trying to keep himself from looking at her, to read her face. He hoped to hear the tiniest ounce of jealousy or disappointment in her face. He heard none.

"You were busy." She said dryly. He wished he had something there to take as pain, but all he heard was her sarcasm and distaste. He sighed.

"I'm sorry." He said, and he meant for everything, but she took it to mean for not speaking to him.

"It wasn't important, anyway." She said, "I can't even remember what I was phoning you for."

That was a lie. He knew her well enough to work that one out. He stole a glance at her. She had leant her head against the window and was looking out, staring at the lights of DC at night, and tiny sad smile on her face. Neither of them said anything for the rest of the journey to Brennan's apartment.

They got out of the SUV, and Booth walked her to her door, not saying a word. She opened the door with a still shaking hand, a sudden vivid reminder to Booth of her breakdown in the hospital waiting room. They both walked through and Brennan made coffee whilst Booth sank, exhausted, into the sofa. She brought the coffee in and sat down next to him on the sofa, her eyes dark.

"Thank you." She said softly, "For coming to pick me up."

"It's ok." He said earnestly.

"No, really." She said, "I wouldn't have preferred to have seen anyone else."

He smiled at her, and she smiled back. Their gazes locked, and for a moment, like earlier that day in the diner, the world seemed to stop around them. The clock on Brennan's wall stopped beating and there was nothing left in the world but Booth and Brennan and the strange invisible connection darting between their eyes. And somehow, in the moment, Booth's hands found their way to her waist and her arms found themselves, completely of their own accord, around his neck. And she looked hard at him. He gave a tiny, almost unconceivable nod. And so she leant forward, and their lips met.

* * *

In her innocent teenage years, before the loss of her parents, Brennan had read girl magazines. She didn't even like to admit it to herself, she was ashamed, but she had. And now everything that she had read was coming back to her. About dizzying attraction and explosive kisses and burning fingers. About loss of self control and losing oneself in the moment. As she kissed Booth, for the second time, that all came flooding back. High school first kisses and drunken flings, eyes meeting across a bar to break contact again, as if that tiny second hadn't happened. Romantic movies she and Sara had watched late at night, mad fights turning into crazy, passionate make out session, running her hands through someone's hair…

He drew back, gasping for breath. As the oxygen coursed into his lungs he felt with it a rush of sudden feeling: guilt, pleasure, joy and confusion. On one hand, Hannah was still laid in bed in her apartment, oblivious of the fact that he wasn't next to her, his arms tucked around her. On the other hand, his Bones hand her arms around his neck, and she had just kissed him. Hard. And this time, she wasn't crying, but smiling. A small, shy smile, a tiny promise.

Then the smile vanished. Her lips were slightly parted as she moved her mouth towards his again. Their lips touched and they instinctively moved closer together, their bodies pressing up against one another, their hearts thudding in perfect time. Both knew they were wrong. Brennan didn't want to hurt some girl she had never met, and she certainly didn't want to become a part of some sort of twisted cheating. And Booth thought of Hannah's loving, trusting smile, and the way she had told him about her broken past, and whispered 'I love you', and knew that he couldn't do this to anyone, let alone the woman with a daughter that had been through so much.

So that was what his brain had decided, but his body seemed to have other ideas. Because his mouth was moving over Brennan's with as much enthusiasm as hers was over his, and his hands were sliding up from her waist, under her shirt. Even when they had to break for breath he kept kissing her, tiny kisses on her face, her neck, and then back to her lips again, driving her mad with his kissing. And then her hands were coming to the zipper on his jeans, her breath hot on his cheek.

"No." he said firmly, and drew away, his hands sliding over hers as they were pushed apart.

She said nothing, just cupped one hand around his face, smiling seductively and moving forward to meet his lips again. He sprang up.

"I should go." He said, and she stood up with him, her body still only inches away.

"You don't have to." She whispered, and reached up with one hand to trace his lips with her finger. He closed his eyes for a split second, taking in the moment. And then he drew himself together. This meant nothing. Look what had happened the last time she came onto him. She would just do the same again, say it was all a mistake and meant nothing. And anyway, she wasn't herself. She was still in shock from the accident. And Hannah was laid in bed, waiting for him to return to her like the same man that had told her he loved her.

"Yes, I do." He said, and broke away from her arms. He walked straight out of the door, not looking back.

* * *

"Angela, I need you." Brennan said into the phone.

"Sweetie, it's 6 o'clock in the morning. I know you don't usually sleep late but I prefer to stay in bed until an earthly hour."

"Can you come into work early?"

"Why would I want to do that?"

"Why wouldn't you?" Brennan said.

Angela laughed, then realised her friend was being serious. "God, Bren. Why?"

"I need to talk to you. I can't do it over the phone."

"Are you all right, sweetie? Is this about the accident?"

"Yes. No. Sort of. But I really need to talk."

Angela sighed. "All right. I'll see you there in half an hour, ok?"

"Thank you." Brennan said. "Thanks."

The dialling tone sounded shrill in her ear, adding to her ludicrous headache. She felt awful. Part of it was the bruising from the accident last night, part of it was from the incredible amount of wine she had drunk after Booth left, and part of it, though she knew it wasn't scientifically possible, was due to her guilt. She had kissed a taken man. And she had pressed her body into Booth's, who had a girlfriend. But the worst thing was that she knew that she wouldn't have stopped. Only because he had stopped her; that was the only reason she hadn't gone all the way, and become one of those women that she hated. The ones that slept with other people's men. She shuddered at the thought of it. She was becoming someone she despised. What was left for her? How could she work with Booth, knowing what she had done? How could she not work with Booth, knowing her feelings for him?

And then she remembered Libya, and the dig. Well, it looked like Booth had made her decision for her, really. She picked up her cell phone, and called Dr Carter.

**OK, so basically Brennan is screwed up and she can't get Booth out of her head, or control herself around him, but Booth doesn't want to do that to Hannah. And he told her he loves her because he was trying to convince himself.**

**Coming up - Brennan and Angela talk, and Booth interrogates Alice Riches.**


	8. Chapter 8

**A REASON TO STAY**

**Booth has a girlfriend and an incident between him and Brennan a few months ago has left things awkward between them. When she is offered a six month trip to Africa, it could seem like the perfect chance to get away. But will Booth realise what he feels in time and give her a reason to stay? BB, angsty and romantic. Please review!**

**This one is dedicated to my saviour and favourite person in the world right now, Ronata21, for putting season 3 of Bones on Youtube for me!!!! You rule!**

_**Italics is flashback.**_

* * *

Booth kissed Hannah's cheek gently. Her eyelids fluttered open.

"Hey." She said, "Where did you go last night? I woke up and you weren't in the flat."

It all came flooding back to him. Brennan, and the amazing kisses. The longing to stay with her, to let her take him somewhere he didn't think he'd ever been before, to let her do whatever she wanted with him. He wished for one terrible moment that he had stayed with her, and that he had held her all night, kissed her bare skin, laid beside her in her bed.

"Oh, a friend of mine was in a car accident. She's fine, but I had to go and pick her up."

"Dr Brennan?"

He turned to her, suspicious, "How did you know?"

"She's the only female friend you have, really."

"Oh." He was lost for what to say. He knew that the right thing to do right now would be to tell her that Brennan had kissed him, to tell her that he had enjoyed it. To tell her that he was in love with his Bones and so he couldn't be with her. Or at least to tell her about the kiss, promise it would never happen again, and then keep that promise. But he couldn't do any of those things. He was a coward, he decided miserably, as he dressed. He put on his tie and then realised with a sinking heart that he and Brennan were going to interrogate Alice Riches. As if that wasn't going to be awkward enough all ready, without the kiss lingering in the air between them, as he was sure it would. He sighed and kissed Hannah on the cheek.

"I have to go to work." He said, looking at the time. It was ridiculously early to be going to work, he knew that, but he thought if he got breakfast at the diner and then looked over his files on the Thorns and Roses gang one more time then he would be prepared, both physically and mentally, to talk to Alice Riches.

* * *

"I kissed him." Brennan said straight out, the moment Angela walked into her office. The artist stopped in her tracks and stared at her friend. Then she sunk into the sofa, not saying a word. The silence dragged out, and Brennan felt the intense guilt overflowing inside her.

"You kissed him." Angela said, taking a deep breath, "Right. Well. That's, well…" she trailed off, looking at Brennan's miserable face.

"A big problem?" Brennan said. "I know."

"Right." Angela said. "Right. It's a big problem. Yes. A very big problem."

If her whole situation hadn't seemed so dark, Brennan might have laughed. Angela was stuttering her way through being supportive.

"Ange. Pull it together." Brennan said sharply. "What do I do now?"

"He has a girlfriend, sweetie."

"I know that." Brennan snapped, and then blushed. "Sorry. I didn't mean to snap at you. I'm just… confused."

Angela said nothing, but let her friend talk.

"I obviously have no intention of kissing him again."

"You don't?" Angela said, eyebrows raised. It wasn't often that Temperance Brennan gave in on something. She was usually determined and persevering.

"I can't." she said simply, and looked at her friend through tear filled eyes. "I want to, but I can't."

Angela reached out and put her arms around her friend.

"What… what did Booth say?"

Brennan cringed. "I… I tried to take things further. That was when he backed off. Then he said he had to go, and I said he didn't have to. But then he said he did and walked out."

Angela ran her hand through her hair. "I don't know what you want me to say, Bren."

"Uh… that you're sure he was just going home to break up with Hannah? Or that I don't really need to worry, I'm not really in love with my partner, who happens to have a girlfriend?"

Angela shook her head. "I'm not going to lie to you, Brennan. But I don't think Booth doesn't feel anything. I don't know. But whatever either of you feel, you can't do this to that girl. It's not fair. You need to talk to Booth, tell him that it was a mistake, sweetie. I'm sorry. You need to do that if you want to salvage your friendship at all."

Brennan nodded miserably.

"When did this happen, Ange?"

"What?"

"When did I start getting so miserable because of Booth?"

"When you tried to let him go." Angela said, and Brennan sighed.

* * *

Booth walked into the Jeffersonian, totally unsure of what he would find. Brennan walked up to him, her smiling, usual self.

"Hey." She said. He just looked at her. She looked around, checking no one was listening, and then she spoke to him.

"Booth, don't say anything. Just listen. I'm sorry. It won't happen again, I promise. I wasn't myself last night. And if you're happy with Hannah, well, then I'm happy for you."

She hated the cliché the moment it left her lips. She smiled weakly. "So can we go back to being friends?"

He looked at her hard. He wanted her to tell him she loved him, to give him reason to break Hannah's heart. But she didn't. She was doing the sensible, moral thing, and letting go. He smiled, and pulled her into a hug.

"Friends." He whispered, and then drew away. "Are you all right to come and talk to Michael and Alice Riches with me."

"Sure." She said, "Just let me get changed."

**Ok, so we interrogate Alice next chap.**


	9. Chapter 9

**A REASON TO STAY**

**Booth has a girlfriend and an incident between him and Brennan a few months ago has left things awkward between them. When she is offered a six month trip to Africa, it could seem like the perfect chance to get away. But will Booth realise what he feels in time and give her a reason to stay? BB, angsty and romantic. Please review!**

**This one is dedicated to my saviour and favourite person in the world right now, Ronata21, for putting season 3 of Bones on Youtube for me!!!! You rule!**

_**Italics is flashback.**_

The doorbell had an annoyingly happy tone to it, Booth decided. For a family who were crumbling with the violent murder of their mother, they had a cheerful doorbell. It didn't seem to fit. Brennan was shifting from foot to foot beside him, and he kept darting glances at her, trying to read her expressionless face. He had resigned himself to the idea of their friendship. It was probably for the best, anyway. They could be friends, confidantes, and rely on each other totally. And they didn't have to worry about letting each other down. He could be with Hannah, and she would be happy, and maybe at some point he would learn to be one hundred percent happy with that, too. And they would still be a partnership, a crime solving team, the best at their jobs.

The door opened.

"Temperance? Is everything ok? Did you find any more evidence?"

"Michael." Brennan said, "We're here to ask you and your daughter a few questions."

They had agreed that they would interview Michael and Alice to make it look like a routine interview, and not like their suspicions were going in any particular direction.

"Of course. I'll just call her. She's out in the garden." He ushered them inside, and they sat down in his lounge. He went out the back to call Alice.

She came through, her face pale, and they all sat down in the lounge. Booth and Brennan turned down coffee, and then Booth started with the questioning.

"Where were you the night your wife went missing, Mr Riches?" he asked. Michael narrowed his eyes.

"At a football match with Daniel. I told you this. Are you accusing me of something?"

"No, Mike. Just routine interrogation."

I was asked all this a year ago when she went missing. It hasn't changed."

Brennan smiled sympathetically. "I know. Booth just needs to hear you say it."

Michael nodded.

"Is there anyone who can support your story, Mr Riches?" Booth asked.

"Sure. Any of the other boys' parents. They were watching too."

"OK. Can you give us a name?"

"Uh, sure. Sandy Gillingham. His son, Rex, is Danny's best friend."

"Thank you. That's all we need from you for now. We'd like to speak to Alice."

"Go ahead." Michael said.

"Alone." Booth added. For a moment Michael looked as though he was about to argue, but Brennan was shaking her head ever so slightly. He turned to Alice. The girl nodded gently.

"All right." He said, "But, Alice, if this gets you too upset, you just tell them to stop, ok?"

Booth was about to move to tell him that that wasn't allowed, but he felt Brennan's restraining hand on his arm. He stopped. Michael left the room.

"So, Alice, can you tell us where you were the night your Mother disappeared."

"I was at my friend's house." She said, "We watched a movie and then I stayed over."

"Can you give us the name of your friend?"

"Lally Everstone. She's in my form at school."

"Right. Did you, at any point, leave the house with or without Lally Everstone?"

"No." Alice said, staring directly at Booth in an almost unsettling way. "No, I didn't."

"Right. Did you ever, at any point, steal Prussic acid from your advanced chemistry class for any reason?"

"Booth!" Brennan said at the same time as Alice shook her head vehemently.

"Auntie Tempe, is he trying to suggest I killed my Mom?"

Brennan took a deep breath. "No, Ally. He's just asking questions."

Booth looked at Alice hard one last time. "Alice, are you sure there is nothing you want to tell me about your Mother's death?"

"Yes." She said, eyes darting between the two of them.

"You know that if you are lying to us then we will find out, and you will be prosecuted for not cooperating with the federal bureau? Are you clear on that?"

She looked at Brennan, and then turned her attention back to Booth. "Crystal."

* * *

Booth called Michael Riches back in. He sat down beside Alice and the two of them both looked shaken from their questioning. Brennan hated that this was what they had to do to the remains of Sara's family. 

"Mr Riches, Miss Riches." Booth said, returning to formality. "I'm afraid our team have found and identified a skull that is definitely Sara's."

Michael and Alice both turned their gaze onto Brennan. Alice looked almost a shade of green. Michael's face was reddening with anger.

"Where?" he managed to choke out.

"At a school. Fourlands High School, in fact." Booth said, but they kept staring at Brennan. Their familiar face, the one they could try to read for clues as to what happened to their wife and mother.

"Oh." Alice gave a little gasp, "My school."

Booth looked at her and for the first time saw not a potential suspect but a teenage girl, not so very different from what Parker would be soon.

"I'm sorry." Brennan said. "Her skull gave me the evidence to determine a cause of death. She died of blunt force trauma to the head, from a hammer."

Alice closed her eyes for a moment, and Michael let out a long breath.

"Did she… would it have… did she suffer?" he asked.

"Death would have been instantaneous from the blow." Brennan said, saying enough but not all of it. Because they had no way of telling how much Sara had suffered before she died. The Prussic acid led Brennan to think it had been a fair amount.

Michael started to cry. Alice put an awkward, shaky hand on his shoulder.

"She had a broken elbow. When someone attacked her, she had no chance of fighting back." He sobbed, and Booth had to look away. He had never been good at watching open displays of grief. It made him feel intensely guilty. For everything. He looked at Brennan. She was pale faced and her eyes were sad, but there was nothing he could do about it. Before anyone could say anything, footsteps came bounding down the stairs and a nine year old boy ran into the room.

"Auntie Tempe?" he asked, and ran at Brennan and hugged her. Then he noticed the pale face of his sister and the tears on his father's cheeks, and fear came into his innocent eyes.

"Are you ok, Daddy?" he said, and Michael nodded, sniffing.

"I've got a cold, Danny." He said thickly. Booth had to look away. The scene was so painful. He felt bad for thinking that the suspicion should be focused on the family.

"Can I carry on, Mr Riches?" he asked, looking pointedly at Daniel. Michael nodded.

"Danny, go and play on the computer." He said.

"All right." Daniel said, and walked off, not a care in the world.

"Dan thinks Mom's on holiday." Alice said thickly, through the tears she was holding back. Brennan and Booth nodded, trying to comprehend the loss the family had suffered.

"Can either of you give us any more details on Alice's father, who you told us before could have held enough of a grudge against Sara to have killed her?"

Alice had frozen to the spot. She looked between Booth, Brennan and her father.

"My… my Dad?" she said, her eyes wide. And then she got up and left the room.

"Ally!" Michael called after her, but she kept walking. Michael started after her, but Brennan spoke.

"Let me go." She said, and walked out of the room, up the stairs to Alice's room.

It was painted pale purple, and the large dark purple double bed in the middle of the room was neatly made. Everything was in the right place, everything put away and everything clean. Alice was curled up in the foetal position on her bed, tears streaming down her face, mascara making two long black lines to her chin.

"Ally." Brennan said, and sat down on the bed next to her. "I'm sorry."

"They promised me that if he ever made contact they would tell me, and let me make my own decision."

Brennan put an arm around the girl she had known from a tiny toddler. "Did she ever tell you anything about him, Ally?"

"His name was Simon Arez. He was half Argentinean, or something like that. She only went out with him for a few weeks, and then she lost touch and never saw him again. She could never find him to tell him she was pregnant. He never even knew about me."

Brennan took a deep breath. "He used to phone, Al. He used to phone to ask to speak to you. Your Mom always told him no."

Alice was silent for a moment. "I would hate her if she wasn't dead." She said softly, and Brennan didn't know how to answer that.

"Did Michael know?" she said.

"Yes. But don't blame him. He would have been in no place to argue with you Mom about your father, would he? It wasn't really his business."

They sat in silence for a moment.

"Tempe?"

"Yes?"

"You won't make me leave Michael and Danny, will you? I know he's not my Dad and everything, but I want to stay here."

Brennan took a deep breath. "I'll do my best." She said.

* * *

Booth and Brennan drove back to the Jeffersonian. 

"You got anything?" he said to her.

"Uh huh. Alice says her father's name was Simon Arez, and he never knew she was even born."

Booth nodded. "Interesting. Michael's given us no reason not to trust his story, and they never told Alice the truth. But there's no reason why Sara would have told her the wrong name. I'll look him up."

"And we have nothing that leads us to think that Alice or Michael are under any kind of suspicion." Brennan said, satisfied.

"All right." Booth said sulkily. "I give in. I was wrong about Alice."

"So what next?"

"We check their alibis. We look into Simon Arez."

"Are we going to look up the gang?"

"No, Bones. I told you, it's more trouble than it's worth. Unless we get evidence that Sara was involved with them, we don't touch on the gang. They like the FBI about as much as we like them, and it will just lead to someone getting hurt, us or Sara's family."

Brennan said nothing, but stared out the window. Like Booth had been convinced there was something about Alice Riches, she was sure the answer was with the Thorns and Roses.

* * *

"Sandy Gillingham and Lally Everstone confirm Michael and Alice's movements that night." Angela said, after coming off the phone with them. 

"Brilliant." Brennan smiled. She was glad the blame was off of Sara's husband and daughter. She turned to Booth with a smug, **I told you so **smile.

"But Simon Arez doesn't exist." Booth said grimly, looking up from the FBI computer. "At least not legally."

Silence reigned over the squints.

"Are you sure?" Angela said, her eyes narrowed. "I've heard that name somewhere before."

"Do you remember where?" Booth asked.

"No. Sorry. Maybe I haven't."

"So where do we go from here?" Brennan said, agitated, "I won't let Sara's case go cold."

Booth sighed, and rested his head on the desk. "Bones, we don't have anything to go on. You've been over the remains at least three times, and the FBI has re-questioned everyone that was even the smallest possible suspect. There's nothing else we can do. And no, I'm not looking into the gang."

Brennan pouted slightly, then her eyes lit up as she thought of something.

"I can go over the four other bones again. They might give us a clue."

Booth nodded, a smile creeping over his face. "They've got to mean something. People don't just dig up random bones and put them in with other bones for no reason."

"I'll go have a look." Brennan said, and walked out with Zack. Hodgins and Cam followed.

It only took Booth a second to realise he was now in the room with Angela, and as the door shut behind Cam, she turned on him.

"What are you doing?" she said simply.

"What do you mean?" he asked, though he suspected he knew what she meant.

"You've been waiting for years for Brennan to admit how she feels about you, and now she's kissing you and you're running back to some schoolteacher."

Booth took a deep breath. "Angela, I waited for ever. She kissed me and then she pushed me away and I still waited. And then I've finally found someone else and now she's changed her mind. Well, maybe I wasn't just there to wait for her forever. Maybe I found someone to move on to, and she's too late."

Angela looked at him. "Have you really moved on?" she asked.

"Yes. I love Hannah." He said through gritted teeth, trying to convince himself as well as her.

Angela raised her eyebrows.

"I couldn't hurt her." He said, "She's been through so much. And now she loves me. I have to give her the happiness she deserves."

"Not if it's at the cost of your own." Angela said, and then looked up, shock showing on her face. Booth spun round and saw Brennan standing in the doorway, her face pale. And then she turned and walked away.

**Sorry I'm updating in such a massive chunk like this but I've been away for ages. Please review, I will promise all reviewers a fat Booth victoria sandwich cake with raspberry jam and butter icing!!!!**


	10. Chapter 10

**A REASON TO STAY**

**Booth has a girlfriend and an incident between him and Brennan a few months ago has left things awkward between them. When she is offered a six month trip to Africa, it could seem like the perfect chance to get away. But will Booth realise what he feels in time and give her a reason to stay? BB, angsty and romantic. Please review!**

**This one is dedicated to my saviour and favourite person in the world right now, Ronata21, for putting season 3 of Bones on Youtube for me!!!! You rule!**

_**Italics is flashback.**_

She was sat on the steps of the Jeffersonian, her heart thudding in her chest. The words echoing in her head seemed to make it more real. **I love Hannah. **He really loved Hannah. After everything, he loved Hannah now. She put her head down on her knees. What had she expected, really? She'd driven him to confess his feelings for her and then pushed him away. She'd stopped letting him in, put boundaries even on their friendship for the fear of feeling too hard. And whilst she'd been stuck in limbo like her bones, he'd been moving on. He'd found someone else. Someone with a daughter, with a troubled past, but still open to his love. Someone he could settle down with, with kids and a dog and a white picket fence. Someone the complete opposite of her.

"You ok?" said a voice, and she looked up to see Cam. She smiled.

"Sure. I'm having a personal crisis right now." She said, and Cam's eyebrows raised halfway to heaven.

"You want to talk about it?" she said, sitting down next to her, "I mean, I know you usually talk to Angela about these things, but I'm listening if you want."

Brennan didn't say anything for a long moment.

"How long did it take you to get over Booth?" she said, her eyes closed.

Cam froze for a second, and then put an awkward hand on Brennan's shoulder. Brennan stiffened, but didn't move.

"Until I met Jason. And then suddenly Booth didn't seem to matter anymore. I had met someone else. I could move on."

Brennan said nothing. Talking to Cam like this was awkward. Brennan and Cam had had a mutual agreement to dislike each other almost from day one. She took a deep breath.

"Can I ask you something, Dr Saroyan?"

"Sure."

"I've been offered a place on a dig to Libya for six months. Leaving next month."

Cam nodded.

"I would like to go." Brennan said, "But I was wondering if my job would still be here when I come back."

Cam didn't even hesitate. "Of course it would." She said. "Dr Brennan, you are one of the best forensic anthropologists in the world. The job will be wide open for you."

"Zack can do my work. He's good enough." Brennan said, "And after six months I'll be back and everything will be back to normal."

Cam looked at her. "You know what? I think this dig will be exactly what you need." She said. "Go on it. Don't let anything hold you back."

Brennan nodded. Then, as quietly as she had come, Cam got up and left.

* * *

"Close the case." Brennan said coldly.

"What?" Booth asked.

"Close Sara Riches' case. We're not going to find any more."

Booth looked at her incredulously and tried to figure out whether she really meant it.

"I thought you didn't want to let it go cold."

"It already went cold. Everything we've got leads to a dead end. Close it."

Booth looked at her. "Are you ok?"

"Fine. Honestly. I want to get a look at some of my limbo cases. Give me a ring the next time the FBI need me, ok?" she said.

"Was that a thinly veiled order to leave?" Booth asked, smiling ironically.

She just looked at him, and then turned and walked away. He sighed, and wondered again what she'd heard him say when he was talking to Angela. But Angela had made him promise not to talk to her about it again. Said Brennan needed some time alone. Said he'd already done enough damage. And now she was sending him away.

She never sent him away from the Jeffersonian. It had never mattered before whether they had an open case or not, he was still always hanging around. Genuinely interested in what she was doing, trying his best to understand the anthropological babble that came out of her mouth when he asked questions. Smiling and laughing with her over Wong Foos. Anything, just being with her. And now she was shutting him out. He lifted the FBI laptop and the case file on Sara Riches and walked out of the Jeffersonian, his heart heavy and his eyes full.

* * *

The rest of the week passed slowly. Booth spent his time in the office, and at home with Hannah and Poppy. He took Hannah, Poppy and Parker to a theme park on Friday, and spent the whole time wondering what Brennan and the squints were doing in the Jeffersonian, and whether Brennan had found anything on the old bones yet.

But as each day passed and he didn't see her, the pain of knowing that he was losing her began to lessen. He got on really well with Hannah, and Poppy and Parker had struck up an instant strong friendship. He began to think that maybe he was looking too hard. Maybe he was wishing too hard for something that he and his Bones could never have had anyway. Maybe it would never have worked between them. After all, they were always arguing, bickering quietly, throwing each other death stares and disagreeing. Maybe they weren't really as compatible as he had been telling himself they were.

He asked Hannah to the Jeffersonian Ball on Saturday, and he paid for her dress. Every time he thought about it he tried not to think about how Brennan would react on seeing him with Hannah. He couldn't let her rule his heart anymore. He couldn't let this insane attraction he felt to her control his life.

**So Brennan's reacting in the only way she knows how, and shutting him out. And Booth is trying desperately to do the right thing by Hannah, but he loves Brennan and we all know it!!!!! R&R! You know you want to...**


	11. Chapter 11

**A REASON TO STAY**

**Booth has a girlfriend and an incident between him and Brennan a few months ago has left things awkward between them. When she is offered a six month trip to Africa, it could seem like the perfect chance to get away. But will Booth realise what he feels in time and give her a reason to stay? BB, angsty and romantic. Please review!**

**This one is dedicated to my saviour and favourite person in the world right now, Ronata21, for putting season 3 of Bones on Youtube for me!!!! You rule!**

_**Italics is flashback.**_

Booth opened the car door for Hannah and then offered her his arm. She took it, smiling radiantly, and they walked into the hall where the ball was being held. All around he could see people, scientists he didn't have a clue who they were or what they did. His eyes scanned the throngs of people for the squints. Then he spotted Cam, dressed in a long black dress and half dragged Hannah towards her and Jason.

"Hey." She said, and looked at Hannah.

"Cam, this is Hannah Webster, my girlfriend. Hannah, this is Dr Camille Saroyan."

Cam and Hannah shook hands whilst Booth shook hands with Jason, Cam's boyfriend, a surgeon. Then before Booth could say anything more Angela and Hodgins had walked over. Angela looked slightly bizarre in a long orange thing with strange ruffles, but it worked on her. Hodgins smiled and clapped Booth on the shoulder.

"Angela, Hodgins, this is Hannah. Hannah, Angela and Jack Hodgins. Angela's an artist and Jack's an entomologist."

"Entomologist?" Hannah said, eyebrows raised.

"Dirt and bugs." Hodgins said, and they both laughed. Booth noticed Angela giving Hodgins a steely glare for laughing with Hannah. Hodgins went bright red.

"That's a really nice colour on you, Hannah." Cam said to break the awkward tension between them all. After all, these were Brennan's people, and Hannah, to them, was the enemy.

"Thank you." Hannah said, "Seeley picked it out." Booth smiled and looked at her in the pale pink dress. She did look beautiful.

"Zack's just getting us a drink." Hodgins said, "And I tweaked some things to make sure we all got on the same table for dinner."

"Brilliant." Booth said, letting the terrible fantasy of sitting with ancient archaeologists slip from his mind. He wondered how to ask how Brennan was without sounding like something was wrong.

"Is Dr Brennan coming?"

Hodgins looked at him as if he was insane.

"Yes. Since when do you ever call her Dr Brennan anyway?" he asked.

"Well, I can't very well just talk about B-"

He trailed off. Standing beside Angela was a tall, slim woman with long auburn hair and grey eyes. She was wearing an emerald green dress, and her hair was cascading over her shoulder in loose waves. Her eyes were outlined with dark grey, and her lips were dark pink, suggesting a hint of a smile.

"Bones. Hey." He said, knowing that if he said anything else he would probably make a fool of himself. The dress was form fitting and accentuated all her curves. The neck was a sweetheart neckline that plunged just enough to make his heart race, but not enough to look cheap. There were no straps, and the creamy whiteness of her skin on her shoulders and back could not have been any more obvious. For a moment he couldn't do anything but stare. And then she looked him straight in the eyes and he could see her sadness, her confusion and her pain. But only for a second.

"Booth, aren't you going to introduce me?" she asked dryly, looking at Hannah.

"Oh, yeah. Uh, Bones, this is Hannah. Hannah, this is…" he paused, not breaking the eye contact he and Brennan held. "Dr Temperance Brennan, my partner."

Hannah reached out a hand, and all smiles and grace, Brennan shook it. And then before he could stop staring, Zach walked over carrying a tray of champagne glasses. They all took one, and the line of electricity flying between Booth and Brennan was broken as Angela took Brennan's arm and started to talk to her about something else. Booth turned to Hannah, smiling.

"Well, what do you think?" he said, "These are the squints."

She laughed. "They're all a lot prettier than I expected them to be." She said, and Cam, who had overheard, laughed.

"What's Booth been saying about us, then?" she asked, and Hannah shrugged.

"Oh, nothing much. Nothing really. Just that you're all way cleverer than him. And Angela's the only one with any people skills."

Cam laughed, and then play slapped Booth. "Be careful what you say. We could demand another FBI agent."

She smiled, but she was looking sadly over his shoulder at Brennan. Booth downed his champagne, and took another.

* * *

Brennan ended up sat in between Hannah and Zack for the meal. She tried to smile and brush this off as if it was nothing, but every time the other woman smiled, or when she took Booth's hand, or when Booth looked at her, she felt the jealousy rise in her throat like nausea. She tried to talk to Zack whilst they ate, but Hannah kept asking her things, and then getting the attention of the whole table and telling them all some little funny thing that Booth had done, or that Parker had done, like they were some cute little family. Which they probably were, to be honest, but it was making Brennan feel sick. She watched Booth smile and laugh at Hannah, and when he leaned over to wipe a little bit of sauce of the little blonde's cheek she couldn't take it anymore. She stood up.

"Excuse me. I have to use the bathroom." She said, and walked across the hall and into the ladies' toilets. She was followed a few seconds later by Angela.

"Are you ok, sweetie?" Angela said, walking over to Brennan, who was leant against the wall by the sinks.

"Yeah. Just needed to take a breather, that's all." She said, and then she wiped her eyes fiercely.

Angela put a hand on her arm. Brennan spoke in a tiny, choked voice.

"I thought I could do this, but I can't. She's… she's pretty, and she's happy and she smiles and talks about Booth's son like he's hers."

"She's nice enough, Bren, but she's not really his type."

"Well – he's with her, isn't her?"

Angela said nothing.

"She's everything I'm not, Ange."

Angela sighed. "You know something? Booth couldn't take his eyes off you when he saw you earlier."

"Like that means anything."

"Well, it sure looked like it meant something. Now, sweetie, you're not yourself. Temperance Brennan doesn't mope over one guy, right?"

"She does now." Brennan said sulkily. "It's my fault. I shouldn't have let him go the first time I kissed him."

"Yes, but what's done is done, Bren. I'm sorry. Now, go back out there and looked so gorgeous that Booth can't stop looking at you."

"He's not like that, Ange. He won't leave Hannah for me."

"He might surprise you." She said, "Anyway, you've got every day at work to work on it."

"About that-" Brennan said, and faltered. "I'm going away for six months. On a dig to Africa. With the Harvard Anthropology Institute. And I've signed up and got leave and you're not stopping me."

Angela looked sadly at her. Then she nodded. "I thought you might do something like this, Bren." She hugged her friend. "I'm not going to try and stop you. But Booth might."

* * *

Hannah's phone rang. Booth's attention was otherwise occupied staring at Brennan and Angela walking back across the room, Brennan's eyes glinting slightly.

"Right." Hannah said and then hung up. "Ok. Sure."

She turned to him. "Seeley, I have to go." She said, and she smiled apologetically, "Poppy's had another nightmare."

Booth took a deep breath. Here was a moment to do the right thing. This was the moment to pretend he didn't want to sit here and gaze at Brennan in that dress all night, and to go with Hannah and show how he could be what she wanted, and what she needed.

"We'd better go then. Sorry…"

He thought Brennan's face fell. He might have been dreaming.

"No, Seeley, don't worry." Hannah said, putting a hand on his arm to push him back down to the table. "You stay here. I don't mind, it's fine. I know how much you've been looking forward to this ball. Stay here, and have a good time."

"Hannah, I-"

"No, Seeley. I insist. Look, you can dance with Dr Brennan." She looked at Brennan, smiling, "You'll dance with him, won't you?"

Brennan gave an almost imperceptible nod. Booth smiled at her for a moment, and then forced his attention back to Hannah.

"Are you sure?" he asked.

"Of course. I don't really know anyone here anyway. Have fun. I'll see you tomorrow."

"See you." He said, and although it pained him, he leant up and kissed her square on the lips. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Brennan stiffen and look away. It broke his heart.

At one point he would never have dreamed that she would feel for him. And now here she was, displaying obvious jealousy and at least some form of twisted care for him. And he was kissing some other girl. He sighed, and waved after Hannah as she left. He was a terrible boyfriend. He shouldn't feel lighter, happier, when his girlfriend left a party. He shouldn't feel his heart racing when he looked at someone else. But that was the sad reality of it all. He was trying so hard to be someone he could never be, for Hannah, and in the meantime he was losing what he really wanted.

* * *

"Do you want to dance?" he said finally, after about three glasses of vodka. She could tell by the struggle on his face that he hadn't been planning on it, but all of a sudden he had run out of resistance. She smiled, and took his outstretched hand. She too had had more than enough alcohol. At the beginning of the evening it had seemed like the best plan to get through it, and now it was just a comfort thing. His hand felt warm in her cool one, and he led her onto the floor with exactly the right amount of dominance and exactly the right amount of gentleness.

It wasn't the first time they had danced together, but it was the first time they had danced like this, with so much in the air between them. The song changed to a slow song and Booth pulled her a little tighter into him. She was holding one of his hands, and the other was holding her to him, burning through her dress around her waist. Her spare hand was resting on his shoulder, and she could feel the rippling muscles through the shirt cotton. Her heart raced.

They seemed to move in perfect time, their feet stepping at exactly the right moment. They were swaying in time with the music, but at the same time in time with each other. Perfectly, like they always had, but they had never noticed. As they settled into the rhythm of it Brennan took a deep breath and laid her head on his shoulder, so her face was inches from his. For a few seconds he tried to force himself not to look at her, and then he gave in, and turned his face down towards hers. The sight of her resting her head on him, her eyes closed, made him smile. Hardly even noticing what he was doing, he tightened his hold on her waist.

Across the hall, Angela danced with Hodgins, facing Booth and Brennan.

"I don't get it." She whispered.

"What?"

"Booth. He's loved her forever, and he still loves her, you can tell, and finally she's ready to accept that and admit that she feels for him too, and suddenly he's running around with some schoolteacher he hardly knows, who smiles too much and calls him Seeley."

"I know you probably don't want to hear this, babe, but maybe Brennan's too late."

Angela sighed. "I could accept that if I couldn't see the way he feels about her written all over Booth's face. What's he doing, kidding himself, Hannah and Bren that he doesn't feel like that anymore?"

Hodgins felt he didn't need to give that a response.

"OhmyGod." Angela whispered, and it was about as close as whispering could get to a squeal, "He did not just kiss her."

Hodgins decided it was time to intervene.

"Stop." He said. "Leave them alone."

Angela was almost laughing.

"Well, there's only a certain number of times he can kiss her and then go running back to McHannah with her McJob and her McDaughter."

She smiled at her husband as Hodgins whisked her away to the bar to get a drink. "Oh, Booth wants Brennan so bad. And they're both about to find that out."

* * *

It wasn't even a proper kiss, more of a graze of lips. But it spoke volumes. It wasn't like the other kisses, the hot, passionate, fiery ones. It was gentle, and loving and beautiful. And when he drew back there was none of the guilt in his eyes she had seen before. He held her tightly to him, and she didn't move, just looked into his eyes, searching for some hint of what might happen now. Lightly and carefully, as if she was made of china and might break, he took her hand and led her out onto one of the balconies.

The cold air chilled them both and Brennan shivered. Without saying a word, Booth took off his jacket and wrapped it round her shoulders. Normally she would have said something about alpha male tendencies or whatever, but they had gone beyond words. There was nothing left for her to say. She leant on the balcony and stared out at DC, lit by night light. His arms snaked around her waist and held her tight, pressing the two of them together so you couldn't tell, in the dark, where Brennan ended and Booth began. Silence seemed to last for hours.

"Why does this feel so right?" he said, shattering their perfect silence into a thousand tiny pieces. And once he had started talking, he couldn't stop. "Hannah's beautiful, Hannah loves me, Hannah's broken but still she's open to me. Hannah's never messed me around, never broken my heart, never shut me out…" he trailed off. "So why does this feel so…" he struggled to find the right word.

"Perfect." Brennan breathed and twisted her head to kiss him gently.

"Perfect." He echoed, and kissed her deeper, letting her tongue explore his mouth, turning her in his arms until she was facing him, holding her tightly against him.

"This has to end, you know." She said when they broke apart for breath.

He looked at her sadly, realising what that meant. That after everything, after this, right now, she was still going to let him go. She wasn't prepared to fight for him. That hurt, that hurt so much. But he wasn't going to let it bother him, not now.

"Not until tomorrow." He said, and kissed her harder and more passionately.

"Do you want to get out of here?" she whispered against his mouth. He grinned shamelessly and led her back into the ballroom, and then out to the taxi.

**Drunken BB affair!!! Yay yay yay!!! **

**The voices in your head are telling you to review... review... **


	12. Chapter 12

**A REASON TO STAY**

**Booth has a girlfriend and an incident between him and Brennan a few months ago has left things awkward between them. When she is offered a six month trip to Africa, it could seem like the perfect chance to get away. But will Booth realise what he feels in time and give her a reason to stay? BB, angsty and romantic. Please review!**

**This one is dedicated to my saviour and favourite person in the world right now, Ronata21, for putting season 3 of Bones on Youtube for me!!!! You rule!**

_**Italics is flashback.**_

The sun shone through the crack in the curtains, sending a beam of light across Booth and Brennan's faces, illuminating what they had done as if it were a crime. They lay together, limbs still intertwined, in a angry mass of twisted, crumpled bed sheets. Booth's entire torso was free from linen, bare except for a slender, pale arm draped across his chest, an arm belonging to Brennan. She had the sheets tucked under her arms, so only her bare back and shoulders were exposed. She drifted out of her sleep.

For a moment, she was filled with an intense, guilt ridden but also pleasure filled shock. She couldn't move, dammit, she couldn't even breathe. And then she let it all go, all feeling, all that pent up emotion that she had had flowing through her all last night. All that unadulterated **love **that she hadn't been able to stop from pouring from her, in the form of kisses, touches and whispers. And he'd responded in the same way. She'd never imagined that she would be here, in bed with Seeley Booth, and she'd never imagined it would feel so…heavenly.

She hadn't forgotten about Hannah though, not even for one tiny second. The image of the laughing blonde danced in front of her mind's eye as she remembered the previous night, what a gentle and wonderful lover Booth was, how her heart had swelled so much it was fit to burst. And how the passion had subsided into silence, how they had laid staring at each other with an intensity Brennan hadn't even imagined, how he had leant forward and kissed her softly, and she had fallen asleep attached to his lips. But now there was a shadow in between them. A shadow called Hannah Webster.

She tried to wriggle out from Booth's arms, but when she made the slightest movement he gave the tiniest moan in his sleep and pulled her tighter to him. She smiled, and then realised that she shouldn't. The rational thing to do, which had been missing last night, had suddenly come back to her. She knew she should wake him up gently, tell him that they couldn't do this, tell him that he needed to go back to Hannah and forget about her immediately. Tell him that she was leaving for six months so he needn't worry about her as a distraction.

But she knew she wouldn't. It scared her, how much she had enjoyed the previous night. How much her entire body was already aching for him again, even with him laid there beside her. She was yearning for him, torn up from the inside out and she couldn't even think anymore. She nuzzled a little further into his neck and closed her eyes. Now wasn't the time to think about how worryingly immoral she was being. Now wasn't even the time to think about how even more worryingly irrational she was being. Now was the time for Booth, and her, and the feel of bare skin against skin, and the lull of sleep.

* * *

Kissing, Brennan decided, was underrated. She laid there beside Booth, kissing and kissing and kissing. Letting his lips travel over her skin, letting them capture her own and suck her heart out through her mouth. Take her heart by force. Allow her to give it up to him. He had his eyes wide open, staring deep into hers, and the intensity was shocking. The darkness and the passion and the longing that all built up inside her culminated in her eyes, the reflection in his identical. It was as she didn't need to feel his hands, his lips, his body; all she needed was those eyes. They didn't say anything, because there wasn't anything to say. They just kissed with their eyes locked, and then they lay intertwined, wishing that time would slow and the morning would never be over.

Finally, she plucked up her courage to speak. But only one word would seem to force its way between her swollen lips. "Seeley…" she murmured, and he felt as though his heart was on fire. He didn't think he could remember a time when she had called him by his first name. To everyone, he was Booth. Seeley seemed to be someone else. Seeley was the someone that was lying here now with Temperance Brennan in his arms, and so full of guilty love he could hardly talk. Hannah called him Seeley all the time, but-

Hannah.

His girlfriend, the woman who loved him. Who wanted him, who hadn't messed around. The woman who smiled and chatted to everyone, had a daughter to play with his son, and who had been broken before. He looked across at the woman laid with him, her eyes bright with a light that he knew in an instant he had put there. He wanted this more than anything. But it just wasn't right.

But her kisses had returned and he was powerless against them, his heart thudding against hers in his chest.

And then his cell phone rang. He pulled away from Brennan gently, and suddenly she had got fear in her eyes, the same fear he had in his heart. What if it was Hannah?

"Booth." He said shakily.

"Booth, it's Deputy Director Cullen. You need to go to the office immediately. There's a girl up here, a Miss Everstone. She's gone back on her confirmation of Alice Riches' movements on the night of Sara Riches' disappearance. You need to talk to her. Dr Brennan too. Can you pick her up on your way?"

Booth looked at Brennan laid naked beside him and smiled ironically. "Sure. We'll be there in ten."

"Right." Cullen said, and then hung up. Booth looked at Brennan. She didn't need this now. If it transpired that Alice Riches was the murderer then Brennan would break. And he couldn't be there to catch her. Because this was **wrong. **

"Bones, it was Cullen. Lally Everstone's gone back on her alibi. We're going up there to talk to her."

She froze, and she turned pale. He wanted to badly to reach for her and kiss her and tell her it would be all right. But he couldn't, because this had to end now, and because he didn't know that it would be all right anymore. He didn't know what was going to happen.

* * *

Lally Everstone was thin, small and ginger haired. She was chewing her lip and looking nervously at them both as they walked into the interrogation room. She sat stock still and stared at Booth and then Brennan.

"I'm Dr Temperance Brennan. I'm the forensic anthropologist on this case." She said, and sat down.

"Special Agent Booth." Booth said, taking the other seat, neatly arranging himself so no part of him was touching Brennan. "Miss Everstone, I have been informed you are here to withdraw your alibi for Alice Riches on the night that her mother disappeared?"

The girl's shoulder's shook. "I couldn't lie anymore. It was fine when it was lying to her parents, lying to her brother. But I couldn't lie to the police, not when it could have had something to do with Sara dying. I couldn't."

She took a deep, shuddering breath.

"Go on." Brennan said gently, wishing she could do something to help the girl. Although she was seventeen, she was only young and she was scared.

"Alice had this boyfriend. Marcus. And I used to cover for her when she went to see him. All the time she would pretend she was at mine when really she was having sex with him in the back of his brother's old car. I thought she was so mature and experienced, and she told me that she couldn't tell her parents because they wouldn't understand." She said, and then she looked at Booth. "That night, she told me that she would be staying out all night. She wandered into my house at three o clock in the morning, crying and blind drunk. I put her to bed and when I woke up in the morning she had left and gone home. Then her mother was reported missing and for ages we never talked about that night. She never asked me to cover for her again."

"What did you say the boyfriend's name was again?"

"Marcus. Marcus Rosetti."

Booth's eyes flashed. Brennan looked at him. She thought of the bag of bones in Dariusz Rosetti's old car. _In the back of his brother's old car. _She felt sick. She tried to make Booth look at her but he was avoiding her gaze.

"That will be all, Miss Everstone."

Lally looked at them hard. "Aren't I going to get in trouble for lying?"

"No." Booth said firmly. "You've done the right thing now."

Lally smiled faintly and sank into her chair. Brennan followed Booth out of the room.

**Ooooooh... did Alice kill Sara?**


	13. Chapter 13

**A REASON TO STAY**

**Booth has a girlfriend and an incident between him and Brennan a few months ago has left things awkward between them. When she is offered a six month trip to Africa, it could seem like the perfect chance to get away. But will Booth realise what he feels in time and give her a reason to stay? BB, angsty and romantic. Please review!**

**This one is dedicated to my saviour and favourite person in the world right now, Ronata21, for putting season 3 of Bones on Youtube for me!!!! You rule!**

_**Italics is flashback.**_

Alice Riches was sat in the interrogation room. Brennan looked at her through the glass.

"Let me talk to her, Booth." She said, and it was the first time she had addressed him directly since they had spoken to Lally.

"Bones, I-"

"Trust me, Booth. I know her. I know how to get the truth out of her."

He sighed. "All right. But I'm sitting in."

She nodded.

* * *

"Alice, we know about Marcus Rosetti. We know he was in Thorns and Roses. We know that you were with him the night of your mother's disappearance."

Alice looked at her, and suddenly fear appeared in her eyes. Brennan wanted it to go away, to make Alice into just another suspect, not someone who she had known from before she could even walk properly. She sighed.

"Alice, if you talk to us now, and tell us the complete truth, things will be better. You're only young, you shouldn't get life if you just-"

A strange light appeared in Alice's eyes. Recognition.

"You think I killed her?" There was a harsh tone to her voice, and suddenly Brennan could hear the slight insanity that always lay under the soft spoken tones of serial killers and psychopaths. It was like she was looking at Alice for the first time, and seeing the possibilities of what she could have done. She was about to say something when she felt a warm hand on hers in her lap. She looked down to see Booth's hand clasping hers and she took a deep breath and kept her mouth closed. **Rational, Temperance, **she thought carefully, training her brain back into anthropologist mode. Booth spoke.

"Miss Riches, we just want you to tell us what happened. Tell us the truth."

Alice's eyes filled with tears. "It's my fault she's dead." She whispered, and Booth darted a glance at Brennan, whose hand was shaking in his. She had gone deathly pale but her eyes were fixed on her foster sister's daughter, cold and collected. The two of them waited for Alice to continue.

"I'd been going out with Marcus for about six months." She said, and her voice was low but steady. "We met at a booze up I went to at some boy's house – an older friend. One Mom didn't know about." She breathed slowly in between, keeping her gaze fixed on Brennan. "Things weren't going too well at home. Mom and Michael were arguing about the amount of work that she did, and Daniel was getting into a lot of trouble at school. Marc took my mind off it all for a few hours."

She looked down at the table.

"I started sleeping with him. I knew I shouldn't, but he wanted to and I didn't really give a damn anymore. Mom and me always used to get on great and now every time she looked at me it was like she was looking right through me. I got pushed to one side whilst she was dealing with Michael and Danny. It was like I was a reminder of everything that had gone wrong in her life before she got her little McFamily."

Again, Booth and Brennan saw the spite in her eyes.

"Alice, Sara loved you. No matter what you say. She loved you so much." Brennan said, her voice catching on the word love.

"You weren't there those last months, though, were you? You weren't there when we shouted and screamed and when she told me that I was like my father. Every time she looked at me it was like she saw him."

Booth squeezed Brennan's hand tighter to stop her from retaliating. She said nothing. Alice looked down and continued.

"Marc had a brother. Dariusz. The FBI had put him in prison a few years before and he was gonna be executed sometime. Marc didn't like to talk about it, but sometimes after we… when we were…" she blushed. Brennan nodded, telling her to go on.

"We would lay there and he would tell me about Dariusz and how it wasn't fair. How he had only been doing his job, only fighting for what he believed in. And I asked him what that was and he told me freedom, change, innovation. All these big things that made my heart race. And I wanted to join. So he told me he'd talk to his boss, and see what he could do." She looked at Booth. "Then he took me to meet his boss. The moment I looked at him I knew who he was. I could have been looking in the mirror in 40 years time or something. He looked at me, and I knew he knew. He was my father."

Booth's mind worked in overdrive. **Simon Arez. Simeon Ezra. **From a look at Brennan he could tell she had realised the same thing.

"He told me things I couldn't imagine. About how my mother had forbidden him to see me, not even told him my name when I was born. About how the day she had found out she was pregnant she had left him. And then he told me that that was the exact thing they were fighting against. And I was so angry at my mother for not telling me the truth that I joined right away. I became a Rose, and I was so proud of it.

"I never told anyone at school, because I was still afraid of the police. I didn't join in with any of the crime. Just helped them to organise things and listened to what my father had to tell me about them afterwards. To me, I guess they were like Robin Hood, stealing from the rich and giving to the poor – but the poor was themselves. After about a month they gave me a new duty – to get some hydro cyanide from my Advanced chemistry lab for them. I did it, of course, because I was so convinced that this was right, that this was **me**. I didn't like to think about what they were doing. I just got the stuff, tiny vial by vial every chemistry lesson, in small quantities so no one could tell it was going missing. I was draining the supplies bit by bit. My father was so pleased with me. He let me sit in on some of their meetings, and he was great. He didn't care about Marcus, he didn't mind that we were having sex out the back in between Marc's jobs. Because now I knew what Marc was. He'd taken over from Dariusz, and he was one of my father's assassins.

"But I didn't care. I was in love with Marc, so much I thought that I would burst. Have you ever been so in love with someone that you know in an instant you would die for them?"

"Yes." Booth and Brennan said at the same time. They didn't look at each other, but a flush was rising in Brennan's cheeks, as Alice continued.

"Well, I knew I'd die to protect Marc, no matter what he was. We were in love and for a few months it was perfect. And then Mom found out. She followed me in her car one night when I told her I was going to Lally's, because I'd left my phone at home, and she was bringing it to me. When she saw me walking the other way she followed me and she found me downtown, where she knew was the Thorns and Roses headquarters. She drove home but when I came home later that night, a bit drunk and even high she told me she wasn't going to tell Michael, but I was never going out again there. We screamed and shouted but for the next few days she kept me in.

"Then, when my Mom fell down the stairs and broke her elbow and was in A&E, I managed to sneak out and meet up with Marc and the other Thorns. I told my father what my mother was doing, and how she was threatening to send me away to school. He said he would give my mother a warning. I wasn't worried about that. I'd seen them give warnings before, they just waved guns around and told people that if they went against their wishes they would kill them. The people left a little shaken but unharmed. I thought that might get Mom off my back and just let me live my life. I was sixteen, for God's sake. I was sleeping with Marc, but then we went back to the headquarters. I thought they'd be finished with Mom by then, but she was still there, tied up. Marcus and I hid behind a screen. He told me not to make a sound. I learnt so many things that night. I learnt that my Mom had got involved with the gang first time round because her father had been killed by them. They were trying to lure her in and blackmail her into giving them some of her father's inheritance, so my father dated her. And got her pregnant with me. And then she found out what they were, and what he was doing, and she left. Never spoke to them again. Seeing my mother scream it out at my father made me realise what an idiot I had been to believe him, and not obey her. I begged Marcus to make him stop, to let me and my mother go, and I thought that if he loved me even half as much as I loved him he would. But he just clamped a hand over my mouth and made me watch. My father… my father was in a rage and he took the hydro cyanide that I got him and he started… he started throwing it over Mom…"

And finally, Alice broke down into sobs, crying her poor damaged heart out into the table. Brennan wanted to comfort her, but she knew they needed this statement, and in this emotional state, Alice was far more likely to give them answers.

"It went on for about an hour." She said in a quiet voice. "I could smell the flesh burning, and hear her screams. Marcus held me there and made me watch. He made me watch. And then he made me watch when my father took a hammer and smashed it into the back of her head. She fell straight away and was still. I… I couldn't think straight. I couldn't understand that she was dead…" she let out a little, hiccupping sob. "Then Marcus led me out and threw me down in front of my father. Simeon. And he said 'are you with us, or are you with her?' and he pointed to my mother, laid dead on the floor. Blood was pouring out of her head. I felt sick, looking at her ruined body. She was so pretty… But I had no choice. I had to say I was with them, or they would kill me too. So I pretended I was cold. I said I was with them. And then Simeon took this massive sharp knife and hacked off her head, and said: 'Prove it.'"

Brennan grimaced. She didn't know how much more of this she could take. She gripped Booth's hand hard.

"I had to bury the head, somewhere safe. I couldn't think of anywhere where no one would look except for my school. So Marcus and I went there in the middle of the night and I buried it under a paving slab. Crying the whole time. Then he took me back to one of the places the Thorns operated and gave me something to drink. Absinthe. I forgot everything and ended up sleeping with him again. And then he dropped me off outside Lally's and I went in.

"In the morning I remembered nothing. I left Lally's and went home. I went about everything usually, and then when I realised Mom was missing I had the first flashback. I saw her lying dead on the floor. I thought I'd done it, so I said nothing to anyone. I didn't talk about it. It took me three months worth of flashbacks to finally piece together everything that had happened. I was still with the Thorns and Roses, but not with Marcus. I broke it off with him. He found himself another girl. I wanted to leave so badly, but I knew they'd kill me. I knew too much. So I just carried on pretending I was with them. All the time. Pretending to them, pretending to Michael. Wishing Mom was still here. Knowing it was my fault. I'm still in it. Still a Rose. But not really. I didn't tell them about the bones being found. I didn't tell them that you were investigating again. I just waited. Figured you'd find out the truth soon, and it would all be over. I thought about killing myself, but then no one would know what had really happened. No one on the inside of the gang would really be on the outside. I thought that one day I would have an opportunity to sell them in and have them punished. So I stayed alive."

She stopped. She seemed to have finished. Brennan couldn't talk. She could see Sara in her mind's eye, pretty, smiling Sara, tortured with acid and then killed. She left it to Booth.

"Alice, how much do you know about the gang?"

"Everything." She said. "I know every member's name. I know their job. I know that they will have a scar on their upper arm for every man they've killed. I know where headquarters is."

He took a deep breath. "Alice, I know you didn't mean wrong. I can't get you out of punishment at all, but you're young. You'll be out by the time you're thirty, with a whole life still ahead of you. If you help me, I can get that sentence reduced."

"I'll do anything." Alice said. "I didn't mean for any of this to happen. I was wrong. There hasn't been a day where I haven't seen her die all over again."

"Take me and some Federal agents to the headquarters. Give me the names. Let me bust the gang for good."

She looked scared, as if she knew that it could go wrong, and it would be dangerous. She looked at Booth. "OK." She said.

* * *

Booth dropped Brennan home before going to the headquarters. She watched him drive off through her window. She had her fingers crossed. She wasn't even a believer in superstition, but she knew how dangerous it was, what he was doing now. She knew the chances of the gang being well prepared were high. She had wanted to beg him not to go, but it was his job. And she had no right to do that anyway. Hannah was the one with that right. She got into her pyjamas and laid on her sofa, tearing pooling in her eyes and drawing lines down her cheeks. Sara was dead. Sara had died in agony, thinking that her daughter was going to suffer forever. She would have gone to bust the gang with the FBI. She wanted someone to pay for Sara's death. She had gone beyond all rational thought.

What if Booth was killed? She hadn't even spoken to him properly in the car. She hadn't even spoken to him properly since she had slept with him. Everything with her and Booth was twisted at the moment. She hadn't even told him about Libya, and the dig. She hadn't told him her feelings. She had just tried to let him be with Hannah and then lost it and let him cheat. She'd possibly ruined his nice little relationship now, and she hadn't gained anything. She was leaving, he **loved **Hannah. He'd told Angela. She didn't know what she had been looking for, making love to him last night. But she hadn't found it.

**Reviewing, please...**


	14. Chapter 14

**A REASON TO STAY**

**Booth has a girlfriend and an incident between him and Brennan a few months ago has left things awkward between them. When she is offered a six month trip to Africa, it could seem like the perfect chance to get away. But will Booth realise what he feels in time and give her a reason to stay? BB, angsty and romantic. Please review!**

**This one is dedicated to my saviour and favourite person in the world right now, Ronata21, for putting season 3 of Bones on Youtube for me!!!! You rule!**

_**Italics is flashback.**_

When she woke up, it was almost dark. And someone was knocking on her door. She stumbled to answer it. Booth stood there, bruised and beaten but alive. She threw all caution to the wind and flung her arms around his neck, breathing him in. He held her at arm's length and stepped through the door.

"Those old bones? They were Sara's father's bones. Simeon Ezra dug them up and put them with hers in a last act of spite towards her for never getting the inheritance money. Got all that off Marcus Rosetti. He didn't hold out well under questioning. Didn't have a chance to talk to Ezra, though. He blew his brains out the moment I walked into the room behind Alice."

"Is Alice ok?" Brennan asked, her tears falling again.

"Yeah. She's going to be put on trial for consorting with the gang, but after she spends a year in psychological rehab. She's gonna be ok, Bones."

She smiled slightly, and buried her head in his chest.

"Ezra shouldn't have been able to have chosen his death like that. He should have died like Sara, in pain and confused."

He stroked her hair gently. "At least he's gone, Bones. Revenge never got anyone anywhere."

She pulled back and looked at him, a new bleak look in her eyes. He spoke first.

"I told Hannah I wouldn't be home tonight." He said blankly, his face not showing any emotion. "If you want me to stay."

"Stay." She murmured and pressed her lips against his. He responded by wrapping his arms around her tightly and pushing her up against a wall, kissing and kissing and kissing. He slid his hands under her pyjama shirt and she lifted his shirt over his head. She drew away for a moment long enough to whisper:

"Bedroom?"

And in response he kissed her harder and they stumbled through.

* * *

"Bones…" he said as they lay side by side, exhausted.

"Don't, Booth." She said. "Don't tell me that we can just be friends, this was a mistake. We weren't even drunk this time. And you offered. You offered to stay…"

"I know." He said, and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "But I'm not this man. I don't cheat. I don't break the heart of a girl who has given it to me."

**What about breaking my heart? **Brennan thought, but she didn't say anything.

"I need to at least give Hannah and me a try, Bones. She was there when you didn't want to be. This is heated, this is… God, this is amazing, but it isn't me. This man isn't me."

She nodded, a tiny nod, and drew her legs a tiny bit away from his.

"I'm sorry, Bones, but I can't do this. I need to give Hannah and me a try. She's perfect for me. I have to do the right thing and give it a go."

She took a deep breath, and looked him in the eyes.

"I get it." She said slowly.

"What?"

"I get it. I get that that's what you have to do. I understand…" she trailed off. "But I love you, Booth, dammit!"

His heart soared and then sunk. A month or two ago he would have given anything to hear her say that. He would have reciprocated and everything would have been…heavenly. But now things had become too complicated, too warped. Nothing made sense anymore. He was trying to do the right thing, but he couldn't resist her, he couldn't.

He had to stop thinking like that. He was going to give Hannah and him a try.

"Bones, I-"

"Don't. Let me talk. I am going on a dig to Libya. I leave next week. I'll be gone for six months."

He looked at her, trying to gauge whether she was telling the truth. He knew she was, but he couldn't understand why she hadn't told him sooner.

"What do you want me to do, Bones?" he asked exasperatedly.

"I want you to give me a reason to stay." She said, and looked at him.

There was something so compelling about her eyes that all he wanted to do was to bend forward and kiss her on the lips. But he couldn't. It wasn't right. This had to end, and if she was leaving, well, maybe that was for the best.

"I can't." he said, and climbed out of bed. "I have to go."

She got out and put a bathrobe around herself. He got dressed in silence, her watching him sadly.

"If we don't have another case I won't see you." Booth said. She looked at him. This was it. The end of them, the end of everything. She stared at him.

"Can I have one last kiss?" she said, though she knew she shouldn't.

He stepped towards her, took her in his arms and kissed her heatedly.

"I love you, Booth." She murmured into his mouth. He tore away, his eyes full of tears.

"Goodbye, Bones." He said, and then he was gone, the door slamming behind him.

* * *

The light was on at Hannah's when he arrived there. He wiped the tears from his eyes fiercely. He knew what he was doing was the right thing. He knocked on the door, hoping to surprise Hannah. The door opened, but it wasn't Hannah stood there. It was a man, a tall man with fair hair and wearing nothing but boxers. Booth just stared. Then Hannah stepped out from behind the man, and Booth looked at her.

"Seeley." She said in a shaky voice. "I didn't think you were coming home tonight."

"Evidently." Booth said dryly, and looked at the man. "Who is this?"

"I'm Jackson." The man said, "Hannah's fiancé."

Booth was stunned. "What?"

"I think you'd better come in, Seeley." Hannah said.

He walked through. They sat down on the sofa.

"I'm sorry, Seeley." She said. "When I met you Jackson and I had had a fight and he had left. You were sweet and smart and funny and I thought I would make Jackson jealous. Then Jackson went away to work for a couple of months and I kept you with me. I was lonely. I made Poppy not say anything. The phone call I got from the ball? Jackson had come home and the baby sitter told him where I was. He was mad, but we made up. And everything's good with us again."

"So Poppy didn't have a nightmare?"

"No." Hannah said. "She doesn't have nightmares about her father. Jackson is her father. There never was an abusive one."

Booth swallowed. "You lied to me." He said.

"Oh, don't get all self righteous, Seeley. You never wanted me anyway. You wanted that woman from your work, Dr Brennan."

He had nothing to say to that. He had left Bones, crying and broken, for nothing. He had to get back to her.

"I need to go." He said.

"Goodbye, Seeley." She said.

He said nothing, but left the apartment and ran to his SUV. He needed to apologise to Bones.

**From the reviews I got the impression that you guys wanted Hannah to be EVIL, so I did the next best thing and made her angry and cheating.**

**Lying scum...**

**Booth is free!!!!!**


	15. Chapter 15

**A REASON TO STAY**

**Booth has a girlfriend and an incident between him and Brennan a few months ago has left things awkward between them. When she is offered a six month trip to Africa, it could seem like the perfect chance to get away. But will Booth realise what he feels in time and give her a reason to stay? BB, angsty and romantic. Please review!**

**This one is dedicated to my saviour and favourite person in the world right now, Ronata21, for putting season 3 of Bones on Youtube for me!!!! You rule!**

_**Italics is flashback.**_

**OK, so I had very mixed reviews. Some of you wanted Brennan to go to Africa and leave Booth for a while because he was an ass. Some of you wanted them to get together. Likewise, some of you liked Hannah being 'EVIL' and some of you thought I gave Booth the easy way out. Like with that, I have gone on the majority of reviewers and what my Bones muse and one of my best friends reckons on this. Hope you like...**

She knew it was him when she got the knock on the door. She didn't want to get up. She never wanted to get up again. She had opened her heart, told him she loved him, and still he had left. She knew he had to do what was right, but she'd really thought that when she told him how she really felt it would have all worked out all right.

"Bones!" he shouted, "you have to let me in!"

Slowly she walked to the door and opened it, looking at him standing there, drenched from the rain. He looked at her.

"It was all a lie, Bones. Hannah, all of it, was a lie. She had a fiancé. She never had an abusive husband. She wasn't broken, and she didn't love me. I'm sorry."

He stepped through the door, staring into her eyes, hoping for some sign of forgiveness. She just looked at him coldly.

"Who do you think I am, Booth? I'm not just some girl who's going to take you back now. You can't come running back to me just because your perfect schoolteacher who wasn't so perfect after all has dumped you." She took a deep breath. She was Temperance Brennan, she was strong. "I gave you everything, Booth. I gave you… everything. I never wanted to tell you that I loved you because I knew then I wouldn't be able to pretend to myself anymore that I didn't need you… but then I did. And I did need you. But I don't have to. I can go to Libya and do this dig and be someone else. There's more to me than the part that loves you. And that part's not going to stop loving you for a long time, Booth, but eventually it will."

"Well, if you'd let me in in the first place, Bones, none of this would ever have happened! It works both ways! I told you I love you and you told me it meant nothing!"

"Shut up. I didn't believe in love, Booth, I didn't believe in commitment and romantic relationships with your partners. And in your arms all that changed, and that scared me. So I had to drive it away. You could have given me time, you could have given me space to realise how I felt. But you didn't. You ran straight to someone else on the rebound and forgot about me."

"I never forgot about you, Bones, you rejected me…"

"Well it felt like it. And then you let me kiss you, and then you slept with me… and all of a sudden I'm not me anymore. I look at you and I don't want to be this same person in ten years time. I want to be with you, I want you to love me, God I even thought about marriage and kids, dammit, and I can't **be **Temperance Brennan anymore because you're looking at me, and you're trying to love someone else but I love you and I… just… can't… do it."

She broke down, crouching on the floor, her head on her knees, sobbing. His heart broke to see her like that.

He sat down beside her and pulled her to him.

"Don't say anything, Bones, just listen. I did something very wrong. I thought that by being what someone else wanted I could fill the hole inside of me you made when you didn't want me. I thought that I was doing the right thing, trying to force myself to move on, and then I couldn't go back on it. I'm not that guy. The whole time I was with Hannah, Bones, I didn't stop loving you. I just had to try to make things work, to stop myself from feeling unwanted."

She sobbed. "You weren't unwanted. I didn't know how to tell you, Booth…"

"I love you so much." He said, and buried his head in her hair. "I love you so much and what I did was wrong and I should have just told you to shut up and kissed you again the first time."

He felt her smile against his wet shirt, plastered to his skin. He went on.

"And making love to you was the most magical thing that's ever happened to me, and I didn't know you could love someone this much."

She raised her head to look at him.

"Don't go." He pleaded, and then he kissed her mouth, her cheek, her neck, trailing kisses along the line of her shirt.

"What are you doing?" she asked weakly, feeling the longing take her over.

"Giving you a reason to stay." He said, and kissed her mouth. When they pulled back for air, she cupped his face in her hands, smiling through her tears, and whispered: "You already did."

And he kissed her again. Nothing more, just kissing, kissing, kissing, on the floor in Brennan's apartment. Tears mingled on their cheeks and their arms enclosed each other, not daring to let go.

"It's gonna be ok." He murmured, "We're going to figure this out…"

"I know." She said. "We're going to be ok."

He kissed her gently and then tucked her hair behind her ears and looked her square in the eyes.

"I'm not ever going to leave you." He promised solemnly, putting everything into his words, "I'm not ever going to let you down again. I'm never going to let you feel alone, or scared, or sad. I'm going to be there every minute of every day right here." He touched her chest where her heart was gently, and he could feel it racing.

"God, Temperance, I've loved you forever." He murmured, and she felt her pulse accelerating at the sound of her first name. She buried her face in his chest.

"Me too." She whispered. "I love you."

He felt like something had been pulled out from under his feet. This was too perfect, too wonderful. His Bones was in his arms and she loved him and he loved her and there was nothing to come between them ever again. He pressed his face up against hers, feeling the ecstasy of her skin against his.

"Forever." He said, "This is forever. I promise."

She drowned his words with kisses, joy exploding like a firework in her heart and in her head, evaporating in an instant any rational doubts she might have had about dating your partner, or about kissing a wet Booth on the floor of her apartment. Only the wonderful, irrational thought of love was left.

**Maybe you like where I went with this, maybe not. But please review anyway and I'll post an epilogue in a couple of days!!!!**


	16. Epilogue

**A REASON TO STAY**

**Booth has a girlfriend and an incident between him and Brennan a few months ago has left things awkward between them. When she is offered a six month trip to Africa, it could seem like the perfect chance to get away. But will Booth realise what he feels in time and give her a reason to stay? BB, angsty and romantic. Please review!**

**This one is dedicated to my saviour and favourite person in the world right now, Ronata21, for putting season 3 of Bones on Youtube for me!!!! You rule!**

_**Italics is flashback.**_

**Here we have the epilogue, finally. I am sad this story has come to an end. It was angsty, it was controversial, but in the end it is all fluff!!!!**

"Jack! Give me a hand here!" Angela called, clutching a tiny baby and trying to drag a two year old out from under her desk. Baby Sophia was crying and little Jamie was clinging to the leg of her chair, trying to stay under the table.

"Come one, Jamie, we're going to see Auntie Tempe!" Angela said in a last desperate attempt to entice the child out. Jamie clung to the wood with a defiant expression on his face.

"Jack!" Angela called, exasperated.

"Do you need a hand there, Angela?" said a voice from the door and Angela looked up to see Zack standing there, grinning.

"It's not funny!" she said. "Zack, get Jamie out from under there and find Jack."

"What's going on?"

"Brennan's gone into labour, that's what's going on, and no one, not even Booth, thought to tell us until now, and it's nearly over and if we're not quick we're going to miss it!"

Zack whistled and pulled Angela's son out from under the table. He then took Jamie's hand and lifted him into the air.

"Let's go and find Daddy, little man." He said so the squealing curly haired two year old and dashed off. Angela lifted her bag and headed out of her office, shutting the door.

Cam stood in the lab, an amused expression on her face.

"Cam, look, I'm sorry. But we'll be back as soon as we can, ok?" Angela said.

"Probably with Dr Brennan with us, knowing her." Someone said behind her, Angela turned to see her husband, changed out of his lab gear.

"Oh, there you are. Where have you been?"

Cam just laughed. "No. You can tell Dr Brennan that I am personally forbidding her to come back to work for at least three months, and if she violates that rule I'll have her fired."

Angela laughed. "Right. Though I don't think Booth will let either of them out of his sight for three years, let alone three months."

Zack came up behind them, dressed in normal clothes too.

"Dr Saroyan, can I-"

"Don't say another word, Zack." Cam said. "Of course you can go. It's a squint thing." She smiled. "Say congratulations to Dr Brennan and Booth from me."

"Will do." Hodgins said, smiling, lifting his son into his arms. Jamie had stopped kicking and screaming now and was looking around in the dazed way he always did when he was at the Jeffersonian.

"See you, Cam. Thanks." Angela said.

"You're welcome."

The three of them, plus Angela and Hodgins' children, practically ran from the Jeffersonian.

They drew up at the hospital and rushed in, Angela running to the desk.

"I'm here to see Temperance Brennan. She's in maternity." She said quickly, her fingers tapping out a nervous rhythm on the desk. The woman looked at her computer.

"Did you say Temperance Brennan?" a woman said behind her. A nurse was standing there, smiling.

"Yes!" Angela squealed.

"She's just given birth to a healthy baby girl. She's in there with her husband now. Are you family?"

"No, but I-"

"Are you Angela?"

Angela nodded wildly, her face half wild with excitement.

"Then she asked for you. Come with me." The nurse said. Angela handed little Sophia to Hodgins and kissed him on the cheek.

"I'll come get you when you can come say hi." She said.

"We're going to get burger king." Zack said and Angela rolled her eyes. She walked away, turning round once to shout: "It's a girl, by the way!"

The nurse showed her the room. For a moment she just peered through the glass. What she saw brought tears to her eyes. Brennan was sat in bed, her hair loose around her shoulders. Her face was pale and she was clearly exhausted, but a tiny smile played on her lips. Booth sat next to her, perched on the bed, his arm around her shoulders. In Brennan's arms was a tiny bundle of what Angela knew was their daughter. Booth and Brennan's daughter. After everything that had happened, there they were now, holding onto their tiny little daughter. Booth had his hand on the little girl's head. Then Brennan looked up at Booth and smiled, an expression of such pure joy that Angela had to swallow hard and force herself not to cry. Then she knocked on the door gently and walked in. Brennan looked up and smiled at her friend as Angela walked in, and when Booth looked up he had tears in his eyes. That was the last straw. Recognising the beauty, and the truth and the love of the situation, Angela broke down into noisy sobs.

"You haven't even seen her yet, Ange." Brennan said, and Angela edged towards them. The baby in Brennan's arms had her eyes wide open and was staring around, looking with wide eyes at the new and amazing world around her. She had blue eyes, like all babies, but there was a slight grey tinge to them that Angela could see turning into eyes identical to Brennan's within a few weeks. She already had a head of dark hair, darker than Brennan's, Booth's colour. Angela looked at her perfect little face and could already pick out both her mother and her father in her face, and even her critical artist's eye couldn't find the tiniest imperfection. She remembered the feeling of absolute perfection she had had when she had first held Jamie and Sophia and when she looked on Brennan's face she could see the same expression there. She had never seen her friend look so…radiant. Not even when she had come running into the Jeffersonian, Booth trailing behind her, gabbling out something in a totally un-Brennan-like manner about not going to Libya after all. Not even the day she had rung Angela ecstatically, only whispering the words: **I'm engaged **before her words were silenced with kisses and the dialling tone was piercing in her best friend's ear. Not even the day she had got married, Angela at her side as Matron of Honour, smiling ludicrously and laughing right in the middle of the ceremony when Booth said, "I, Seeley Booth, do take this woman, Bones." She'd been so beautiful that day, more beautiful than Angela could even have imagined. Marrying Booth, having been opposed to marriage all her life, she had loved every moment of it, and her eyes had shone all evening.

But today was different. This happiness was on a whole new level. She was practically shining from the inside out.

"Ange," she said, and you could hear the smile in her voice, "This is Sara Angela Booth."

Angela's words caught in throat and she said nothing, just bent down and kissed the baby on the forehead. The little girl's eyes widened even more and she put her hand up and caught Angela's long dark hair.

"Congratulations, you guys." She said softly, and Booth and Brennan smiled and leant their heads together, bent over their baby. Suddenly someone burst through the door.

"Surprise!" shouted Parker and ran through to hug his dad. Booth put his finger to his lips but when it became clear that Sara was oblivious and hadn't started crying, they all laughed. The nine year old boy sat on the end of the bed, smiling broadly.

"Dad, Mom's gone home, cos Lucy's sick. She said to say congratulations. You're taking me home." He nodded to Angela. Angela smiled, still overwhelmed with the tiny baby in front of her. And then Hodgins and Zack came through the door, carrying Sophia and Jamie. Everyone gathered around the bed to stare at the beautiful little thing that was half Brennan, half Booth.

"She's going to be anthropologically very well structured with her genetic combination." Zack said, and Brennan and Booth shared a look. Parker looked blank.

"He means that Sara's gonna be hot when she's older." Angela said blankly, "She's gonna have so many boys after her."

"No she isn't." Booth said through gritted teeth, and Brennan laughed, and kissed him, stroking his cheek gently, her wedding ring flashing on her finger as she did. Then Sara gave a little gurgle and closed her eyes, falling into a deep sleep.

For the first time, Brennan cried.

"She's so beautiful, Seeley." She whispered, and rested her head back against him. "And I'm so tired."

Booth kissed her forehead. "Right." He said, turning to the others. "Everybody out."

Slowly they filed from the room, darting last glances at the little baby girl. Then Booth took his daughter from his wife's arms and held her tightly. He bent down and kissed Brennan on the head, smiling.

"Well done, Bones. You did good."

"I did good." She said, and smiled. "Scientifically, you did good too."

He chuckled at her, as her eyelids fluttered towards closing. "I did good too." He said.

"She's perfect." Brennan said. "I love her so much."

"I love her too." Booth said. "I love her and I love you. Now sleep."

Brennan already was.

* * *

When she woke, someone was sat at the foot of her bed. A tall, blonde woman, smiling from her eyes.

"Hey, Tempe." She said softly. "I'm proud of you."

"Sara?" she said groggily.

"Yeah." Her foster sister smiled. "Thank you for solving it. For finding me."

"S'ok." Brennan said sleepily. "This isn't real."

"Maybe not." Sara said, "But can I ask you one thing? How's Alice doing? I've never blamed her, you know."

"She's great." Brennan said with a smile. "She's training to be a doctor now. She still has nightmares sometimes, but she's gonna be ok."

"Good." Sara said with a sigh. "Thank you."

"S'ok." Brennan said again, her eyelids drooping.

"You came out all right, you know that, Tempe? You got the job, an amazing husband, a beautiful little daughter…"

"I know." Brennan murmured, "I know…"

"You know what?" Booth asked, jerking her from her dreamings.

Brennan paled, looking around.

"What is it?" Booth said, "You look like you've seen a ghost."

"Don't be silly. It's technically impossible for ghosts to exist." Brennan said, and Booth hugged her.

"Oh, that's why I love you." He said, and kissed her gently. Brennan smiled into his shoulder, breathing in the feeling of absolute love and realising that she had something to fight for, forever.

**Hope you liked it. I am sad that it is all over, but I am going to do a couple of fluffy one shots right now. **

**Thanks to all those who read and reviewed the whole way through, and to everyone who reviewed in general. **

**xgreyslostwhox**


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